The Family Man
by Chloe Peacecraft
Summary: Finished! A Gundamized re-make of the movie (gotta love Nicholas Cage...). Milliardo chose the road less travelled... or so he has always told himself. Now he's about to have a glimpse of the road he didn't take...
1. Wake Up and Smell the Pie!

Chapter 1: Wake Up And Smell The… Pie?! 

_December 24, 208 A.C., Sanq Kingdom_

'Twas the night before Christmas… and he was still in his office.  
  
Milliardo Peacecraft looked away from his laptop screen long enough to glance out the window, and groaned at the sight.  
"Aw, man… freaking snow again? That's going to make for a fun drive home…" Admittedly, the roads would probably stay covered in the white powdery stuff for a while, considering it was now 10 minutes to 10:00 pm on December 24, and every snow plow driver in the Sanq Kingdom was probably home, celebrating with family… As was everyone else from the office… unlike him.  
  
He shook his head, and resolved that the most productive thing to do for the time being was to get back to his report.  
  
Besides, it was technically not true that he had no family to celebrate with. Relena, for one thing, had invited him over to dinner, which he had politely declined on accounts of work needing to be done. What he had chosen not mention to her was the fact that he had always felt somewhat of an outsider looking in on her life from afar. A feeling that Relena's husband of eight years, ex-Gundam pilot and arch-rival Heero Yuy, did nothing to dissipate.   
  
Heck, he barely even knew his own niece, and could not, for the life of him, remember exactly how old she was, or when her birthday was, though she looked like she was about 3 years old. What the heck did he know about children, anyway? He had gone from being a military cadet to being a soldier and ace pilot during the war, only to be tossed into a hellhole called Mars Terraforming Project before he came to his senses and walked right back into the ruthless world of politics that he had been destined to since birth. Nowhere in there had there been any room for family life and warm, fuzzy feelings.  
  
He quickly shoved the thought right back to where it came from. If there was one thing he had learned from the war, it was not to wallow in self-pity. Aside from being bad strategic practice, it did nothing to change the situation. Not that he would have wanted the situation to change much at all.   
  
As far as Milliardo Peacecraft was concerned, his life was a constant search for perfection. He had a successful job as one of the kingdom's youngest and most charismatic diplomats, a waterfront penthouse apartment right in the middle of the downtown core's priciest neighbourhood, a wardrobe full of designer suits that had earned him more than one appearance on the cover of GQ, not to mention the fact that he had now held the title of "Most eligible bachelor" for four years in a row. Which tended to make his dating life quite lively… He figured there weren't a whole lot of people out there who could, in all honesty, say that about themselves. So where the hell did he get off envying the plow man all of a sudden?  
  
Just then, a soft knock was heard, and his elderly secretary timidly walked in.  
  
"Mr. Peacecraft, while you were in the conference call somebody phoned, looking for you. She was wondering if you could call her back, but I doubt that she's in her office any more…" with that, Mrs. Lund checked her watch, only to confirm her suspicion that it was well past time they both went home and called it a day.  
  
"She left her name and phone number, though…" she continued, just as she put on her glasses and tried to focus,  
"Lu… Lah… oh, brother, how did she pronounce this again? Oh, well… Miss Noin." With that, she slid the note across Milliardo's desk, quite oblivious to the fact that his face had grown awfully pale, if it was at all possible for the already fair-skinned Peacecraft.  
  
"Oh, and you should tell those old aristocratic buggers to stuff it and go home already," Mrs. Lund added in an almost motherly tone as she exited the office, "it's Christmas, and you of all people deserve a break, Mr. Milliardo."  
  
He sat there in his office chair, twirling the note in his hand, looking at it over and over again, unsure as to what to do. Lucrezia Noin. It truly was her. But why on earth would she call him, of all people, and at Christmastime, no less? The last time he had spoken to her, it had been about 10 years ago and, if memory served him right, he had been a complete jackass…  
  
********  
_December 1, 198 A.C., Mars Terraforming Base_

They had talked about this over and over again, and he had not wanted to leave unless he was absolutely certain that she was ok with it. And, being the supportive friend and lover that she always was, she had been excited for him right off the bat. No sooner had he told her about Relena's offer to go back to Sanq and become her associate, that Noin had rejoiced over the possibility of him rebuilding his family ties, as opposed to staying on Mars and hiding from his heritage for the rest of his days.   
  
They had discussed this over and over again, how his moving back to Earth was going to affect their relationship, and at the beginning it had seemed not worth leaving, if it meant losing the one thing that had kept him sane throughout the general insanity of war. But she had been adamant, right from the start, that she would be there for him, no matter where life took them.   
  
Though she would not be moving back with him, at least not right away, she cared about him way too much to wimp out at the thought of a long-distance relationship. Or so she had told herself, every day and every night since knowing of Relena's offer. This was simply too good to pass by, and she decided that she would rather see him leave again than be the one to hold him back. The distance, the pain of separation, the long Martian nights without him… those, she could deal with. What she could not, and would not deal with was the risk that, some day in the future, he might look back on his life, and regret that one missed opportunity… and, consciously or not, blame her for it.  
  
That was, until that one moment, when they were both standing in front of the boarding gate at the spaceport. His bags were already checked, and the first call for late passengers had just been made, yet their hands would not let go of each other. There was something bigger, working against their best resolve to be strong and let go. A sense of loss, which they should both have been used to from the many separations that they had to endure as soldiers. Back then, it had been just as hard, every single time… and yet they had always come back to one another, each time stronger and more aware of how precious their bond really was. This time should be no different, except in the fact that they should be wiser and stronger with that knowledge. Or at least they both tried to convince themselves of that. One last hold, and then it would be time to walk away.  
  
"I'll e-mail every day…"  
"And I'll be putting that brand-new scanner to good use, with all the pictures I'll have after the staff party…"  
So much like her, to make light of the situation to relieve the tension, he thought, just as she was trying to conjure up mental images of the previous year's Christmas party and of the many ways that some of their colleagues had chosen to make complete fools of themselves under the influence of too much rum and eggnog…  
He was ready, he could do it, because he knew that she would wait for him, like she always had in the past.  
  
Then out of the blue, it came. Just when she was about to hurry him onto the shuttle before it left without him, she had said it.  
  
"Please don't leave. I know this is going to sound completely idiotic, not to mention incredibly selfish, but I don't think I'm quite ready to give you up yet…"  
  
And all his certainties about himself, his dreams, their future together, and his sense of duty to his overworked sister had promptly gone out the window. He could do nothing but stare at her blankly, as his mind raced in circles over the dilemma. If he left, she might not wait for him this time. If he stayed, he may never get to do anything more significant with his life than set up house on a barely inhabitable colony and live on a meager Terraforming engineer's salary. If he stayed, he was with her. If he left, she may also decide to leave this hellhole behind and come home to the decent life that they both deserved.  
  
She knew the answer even before he had a chance to speak. She had read the apology in his eyes long before he had even come to that conclusion. Her eyes squinted for a second, trying to blink away the tears before they surfaced. Then she smiled, one of her "You know what? I'm a twit" kind of smiles that on another day would have caused him to smile back.  
  
"Ok… cancel that… Scrap it… Pretend it never happened because, guess what, it didn't," she said, all in one breath, "I'm just being a big wussy, and I know better than that, so get your lovely ass on that shuttle before you miss it for good…" Her smile grew wider, as though she really did mean it and, had her eyes not started to redden uncontrollably as she did so, he might as well have believed it.  
  
"Are you going to be alright?" he only managed to choke, fighting back his own emotions.  
"Zechs, of course I'm going to be alright," she had replied, forcing out a chuckle, "don't be silly… It's not like we haven't been here before. I love you, and I choose us… Even if that means having to put up with the distance for a while… it's all good in the end."  
  
He had walked away, feeling somewhat comforted by those last words, by how bright her smile had been, even through the tears, and how salty, yet sweet with anticipation, that last kiss had been. And yet, in the back of his mind, it was almost as though he sensed it, despite her words, that he may not ever kiss her again.  
  
Before he knew it, Christmas had gone by. Adjusting to being Milliardo Peacecraft and to Relena's hectic schedule hardly left any time for the long e-mails that he had intended to write. Slowly, he found himself feeling more and more disconnected from Noin's life, as though he no longer held the right to ask how she was doing, or to rant on about his own day.   
  
And when the Christmas party pictures came, he caught himself almost resenting her. For what, he couldn't pinpoint at first. Then the realization came to him that he was indeed resenting her for smiling, and having a life, and relying on the support of her colleagues and friends to get through the loneliness. He was resenting her for not being lonely and miserable without him when, ironically enough, he had never been lonelier since coming home.   
  
He gave her another two months, waiting for that one e-mail, saying, "Screw Mars, I'm coming home." Hoping to one day come home from work, and find her in his apartment, rummaging in all his cupboards and complaining out loud about his "typical bachelor kitchen" as she attempted to cook him dinner. But, of course, he never mentioned any of that, and the e-mail never came. Nor did the surprise visit. And he broke it off quite abruptly as he realized that he could not compete with her love of outer space.  
  
***************  
  
"What's that, in your hand?" a familiar voice piped, startling Milliardo out of his reminiscing. He looked up, only to see Dorothy Catalonia, his sister's aide, standing in the doorway, a hand on her hip and her trademark smug smile on her thin lips.   
  
"Nothing," he groaned, not feeling much like conversation, "just an old phone number…"  
"An old phone number…" she repeated, "Or maybe an old girlfriend's phone number?"  
He did not need to answer for Dorothy to catch on, as she could be quite perceptive about matters of the heart, despite her somewhat intimidating "single and loving it" demeanor.  
  
"Ugh, one of those 'old flames', huh?" she commented casually, "They're bad news, Peacecraft. Better leave them in the past. Trust me, I know from experience. Have a merry Christmas!" With that, she walked out, just as she had come in, and made her way to the elevator and out of the building. Milliardo looked at the note, now crumpled in his hand, and resolutely tossed it in the trash bin.  
  
It was time to go home for him too, he decided, as it became clear to him that his brain was now just as productive as a big, wobbly glob of Jello. He'd be back with a fresh mind bright and early the next morning to finish up the whole thing properly, while those with families enjoyed their Christmas. And why the heck not? He had never really given a hoot about that whole happiness-and-joy, deck-the-halls kind of nonsense. In fact, he was thankful that he had nobody to guilt-trip him for not buying into it, or whine about the long hours, and otherwise keep him from excelling at what he was doing. He was truly free and unattached, and that could only be a good thing.  
  
Just when he was about to lock the door to his office, his eyes were strangely drawn to the painting outside in the hall, the one of his late friend and mentor, Treize Khushrenada. Normally, he wouldn't pay the portrait much attention at all, since he had seen it day in and day out ever since working for Relena. Except, that night, the painting seemed to almost stare back at him and smirk. And, much to his dismay and concern for his sanity, he found himself replying to the painting with a rebuke of his own.  
  
"Bugger off, Treize… You were no less of a workaholic. At least I realized it before I went and knocked anyone up…"  
  
*************  
  
He got home and, just like any other night, checked his voice mail. Two messages: one from Relena, Heero, and little Katerina, chorusing an off-key Christmas carol into the receiver, and bugging him some more to join them after work, even if that meant it was long after dinner. In the background, he could hear music and the other invitees, one particularly loud set of voices belonging, no doubt, to Heero's best friend Duo Maxwell, his wife Hilde, and their three terrors… ahem… children. He shook his head and deleted the message, deciding that Heero should definitely keep his day job.  
  
The second message was from that cute chiropractor's nurse that he had been seeing for the past couple of weeks. He had invited her to go skiing with him the next day, and yet there she was, apologizing for not being able to make it, as she was going to be out of town, visiting her parents for the holidays.   
  
"Aw, hell," he thought, "I'll just go by myself." With that, he walked over to the wet bar, and rummaged for a while, in search of one particular bottle. It wasn't quite the same thing as sipping rum and eggnog in front of a fireplace with a bunch of friends, he mused, as he scooped up a glass and turned on the TV. But, for now, a couple of shots of Wild Turkey was just about as much holiday cheer as he could stand…  
  
"Bugger… it's empty." This was definitely not his night. When the heck had he drained the last of it? For the life of him, he could not remember. No matter, he put his heavy coat and gloves on, and resolved to walk to the cold beer-and-wine store around the corner to pick up some more.  
  
The chilly air felt good on his face. He figured it was because he had been cooped up inside all day. Breathing real air, as opposed to recycled air conditioning, actually felt rather liberating. He would quite enjoy spending the next day on the ski hills… After that blasted report was over and done with, of course.  
  
He was rather pleased to see that the cold beer-and-wine store was still open, proof enough that, just because it was Christmas, the world as he knew it didn't all of a sudden stop functioning. Not everyone fell victim to the warm fuzzies and general Yuletide madness. He quickly located the shelf he was looking for, grabbed himself a bottle, and walked over to the counter to pay.  
  
Just then a rather intoxicated youth barged into the small mom-and-pop store, and whipped out a gun at the cashier, threatening to plant a bullet in his head if he refused to cash his 'supposedly winning' lotto ticket. Panic ensued among the customers that happened to be in the store, and Milliardo groaned at the prospect of having to spend the rest of the night giving descriptions to some rookie police officer. He decided it was an utter waste of his time, and jumped in on the action.  
  
"Excuse me, young man, but maybe I can help," he uttered calmly yet firmly, not flinching at all when the robber aimed the gun at him. The young man stared him up and down, taking note of his designer suit, before mouthing off a rude dismissal and getting back to the frightened cashier.  
  
Yet Milliardo would not back down. He could negotiate this, he knew it. He had negotiated with nations hell-bent on blowing each other to smithereens, he surely could handle a young man in need of a quick fix.  
"I'll buy your ticket," he stated calmly, not making a move so as to not startle anyone. The youth was about to tell him to shut up again, when he clued in to the words.  
"Yeah, right, and what do you get out of it, prissy-dude?"  
"Simple. I get my evening back. Nobody gets hurt. You walk away with the money, I walk away with the ticket, I cash the ticket and make my money back, and we can all go home and enjoy our Christmas. Completely hassle-free. It just makes business sense. Now, how much is this ticket worth?"  
The young man thought about it for a second. This guy was either up to something, or was a complete and utter sucker.  
"200 bucks," he replied a bit skeptically.  
"200 it is," Milliardo stated, and pulled the exact amount in cash from his wallet. The young man scrutinized him for a while longer before holding out the crumpled lotto ticket and taking the cash in exchange for it. Then, just as he had come in, he walked out of the store, leaving customers and cashier alike breathing a sigh of relief and thanking Milliardo profusely.  
  
Once out of the store, Milliardo felt the urge to call out to the young man, who was walking a few feet ahead of him. Stupid thing to do, he knew it… he should be happy that the guy hadn't injured anyone and was moving right along… he didn't all of a sudden need to become best friends with him, or worse still, become his mentor… And yet…  
  
"Listen," he began, just as the young man had stopped to allow him to catch up.  
"Dude," the youth replied, "what is it now?"  
"Nothing, I just thought… You know… there is help available, out there… for people like you. You could make a fresh start, achieve anything you want…" The young man gaped for a second, then burst out laughing his head off, much to Milliardo's puzzlement.  
  
"You… you…" he kept gasping for air amidst the fits of laughter, "You wanna save me? Holy crap, that's hilarious!" Then regaining his composure, he angrily spat back, "What makes you think I need saving, huh?"  
"Well," Milliardo began, not allowing himself to feel intimidated by the youth's in-your-face stance, "You're way too smart for this kind of life. You took my offer, which means you're rational and you know a sound business decision when you see one. Say you went back to school… got out with a degree in law, or economics, political science, you name it… Do you have any idea how much money you could be making, all of it legal and risk-free?"  
  
"Oh, right, so I can be like you," the young man mocked, by now quite amused by the whole thing, "'cause I suppose you're gonna stand here and tell me that you have the perfect life…"  
"Why, as a matter of fact, I don't know about perfect, but it gets pretty damn close," Milliardo replied.  
"Waitaminute, lemme get this straight… you're out in the freezing cold, by yourself, buying booze on the night before Christmas, and you want me to believe that you have everything you want out of life? That there is nothing, not one single thing, that you need…"  
"That's pretty much it," Milliardo grinned, quite sure by then that he was finally getting through to the young man.  
  
"Oh… ok… makes sense, I guess," the youth replied, then turned to look straight into Milliardo's face. Right then and there, Milliardo could have sworn that the young man's face morphed into Treize Khushrenada's infamous grin. The familiar voice of the man who was once a brother to him spoke out of the youth's mouth, in that amused, almost paternalistic tone that Milliardo knew better than he cared to admit,  
  
"I'm sorry, Milliardo, but you brought this one on yourself, old friend…"  
With that, the young man turned around and proceeded to disappear behind the first alleyway corner, leaving a shell-shocked Milliardo Peacecraft standing in the middle of the sidewalk, wondering whether he had finally lost all his marbles.  
  
"Great, I talk to dead people, I see dead people… I'd better get some sleep," he muttered to himself as he walked back to his apartment, a death grip on the bottle of Wild Turkey.  
  
******************  
  
The light came seeping in through the window, aiming straight for his eyes.  
"Strange," he thought, still refusing to open them, "why am I smelling apple pie?" Just then, he was startled into full wakefulness by a body landing a free-fall on him.  
  
"Thank you-thank-you-thankyoudaddyIloveit-it's thebestChristmaspresentever!!!"  
  
A nauseous feeling clamped at his stomach, and panic set in as he frantically sat up, only to see a bright-eyed little girl of about 8 years old, smiling ear-to-ear as she hugged him for dear life, a half-unwrapped box with a telescope sitting on his bedroom floor. Which, coincidentally, did not look one bit like HIS bedroom as he remembered it. Cozy, but definitely not his.  
  
Milliardo Peacecraft rubbed his eyes furiously, repeating to himself over and over again that this was just a dream. He was not crazy. He was not hallucinating, seeing things that weren't there, imagining a life that wasn't his… he was, plain and simply, having a dream. A nightmare. Soon, he would wake up and not remember a thing, and he'd pop into the office to finish analyzing those bloody figures, then go skiing, just according to plan.  
  
Only, the vision would not dissolve. The little girl with long dark hair and eyes like his own was still very much there, quite content in the koala-bear hold that she had around his shoulders.  
"I love you, daddy… You rock," she declared, then proceeded to scoot off the bed, and pull him by the hand, all the while rambling on a mile a minute as to the total and utter importance of him getting out of bed that very minute and following her downstairs so they could all open up their presents.  
  
Just then, Milliardo remembered the words that had come from Treize's ghost… or whatever the heck that was that he thought he had seen just the night before.  
  
"You brought this one on yourself, Milliardo," he recalled in his mind, then paled as the thought was quickly replaced by a new one,  
"Oh, crap!"  



	2. Never, Ever Tick Off a Dead Guy

Chapter 2: Never, Ever Tick Off A Dead Guy… 

He groggily walked down the stairs of the unfamiliar house, led by the hand of the unfamiliar little girl who claimed to be his daughter, and just then noticed that he was wearing a VERY unfamiliar set of flannel pajamas. Out there in the living room, a huge Christmas tree was decked out, gift-wrapped boxes piled underneath in a haphazard way.  
  
"Please tell me this isn't one of those 'Scrooge' epiphanies," he thought to himself as he came into full vision of the room. And was just about ready to face-fault at what he saw.  
  
"Oi, Zechs, how's it going, buddy?" a tall, somewhat stocky fellow with fiery red hair and a goatee greeted, just as he gave a flick of the wrist to the cast-iron pan that he was holding over the coals of the wood-burning fireplace. Milliardo cringed inwardly at the choice of name… one which he hadn't used ever since leaving Mars.   
  
Beside the fireplace, two armchairs were occupied by a couple in their mid-fifties, the lady with similarly-coloured hair, left loose as though to accentuate her Celtic features, and the gentleman, with a slightly balding head of grayish-black hair, and a rather scholarly, yet friendly aura. The young man and the couple looked eerily familiar, although he could not say exactly how or why. His head searched frantically for any plausible reasons that would reveal how he was related to these people, then quickly rejected the one image that his mind presented as a possible explanation.   
  
"Oh, God… What if in this life I'm…? No! No no no no… nu-uh, no-way, not a chance in hell, I am definitely not gay. Not in this life, not in any other life. And, whoever this guy is, he is most definitely NOT my… my… Ugh, I think I'm getting a migraine…"

"Uncle Lorenzo's gonna teach me how to make chestnut stuffing for the turkey," the little girl pointed out proudly as she went and settled by the Celtic-looking young man, wanting to peer into the pan to see if the chestnuts had begun to expand out of their skins yet. Inwardly, Milliardo breathed the heaviest sigh of relief since the Gundam pilots saved the day in 196 A.C.  
  
"Patience, Vic, it'll be another… oh, I'd say about 5 minutes," the supposed Uncle Lorenzo instructed. Milliardo figured that, at least, now he knew two things. One, he was still very much a straight man. Two, his daughter's name was most likely Victoria, and that put him at least marginally ahead of whatever sick and twisted game he had been thrown into.

  
  
With that knowledge, he waved everyone good morning, and proceeded to make his way into the kitchen… wherever that happened to be. Whatever this place was, he figured, they must have coffee… He peered inside, scanning for the coffee-maker, when his eyes fell on two ladies intent on whipping up pancakes by the stove, of which he could only see the back. One was petite, with long, curly red hair, much like the young man and the middle-aged lady out in the living room, though she looked like she could be no older than seventeen. He had to grab hold of the door frame, lest his knees falter when he focused on the other. She was taller, with short, midnight-black hair, falling softly in wispy strands about her neck and chin, and was holding a VERY blonde toddler.  
  
The baby noticed his presence first, being as his chin was propped up against the dark-haired woman's shoulder. His bright indigo eyes lit up as he reached out a pudgy hand, and squealed,   
"Da-da-daaaa!"  
Milliardo silently panicked again at the though that this one, too, must be his own.  
"So much for not knocking anyone up," he realized, feeling the full irony of his earlier sneer at Treize's expense.  
  
Just then, the dark-haired woman turned around, her lips opening up into a glorious smile, and he recognized her beyond the shadow of a doubt as his once-best friend and love, Lucrezia Noin.

"Daddy's up," she cheered, talking to the toddler in her arms, "Let's go say hi!" and with that, walked, or rather, danced over to the doorframe that Milliardo was still clutching for dear life, and planted a full kiss on his lips.  
"Merry Christmas, sleepy-head," she teased as she mussed his hair, and he began feeling dizzy once again.   
  
"Merry Ho-Ho," the redhead girl greeted cheerfully as she ducked to explore the contents of the fridge, no doubt to avoid witnessing any kissy-smoochy scenes, "Lu, what the heck do I do with this goopy mess over here?"  
  
"Uh… I believe that's Lorenzo's goopy mess, for the stuffing. Don't ask, I haven't the slightest clue as to what he's up to… Zechs, do you mind holding Ben while Elisa and I finish up in here?" And before he knew it, he had a bouncing one-year-old in his arms, whose name he now presumed must be Benjamin, like his own late father, little oatmeal-smeared hands painfully tugging at his long hair as one thought flashed in his mind,  
  
"This… is not… my life. What the hell happened to my life?"

*******  
  
Well, he was determined to find out, that was for damn sure, although he had the most disconcerting feeling that this was neither a dream, nor a prank… He quickly parked the baby on the middle-aged Irish lady's lap, whom he now recognized as Noin's stepmother, and ran upstairs to throw on some clothes. It came to him as no surprise that all his designer suits had been replaced with jeans, khakis, and sweaters, as though, in this parallel universe that he had been tossed into, he had no need whatsoever for any formal or business wear. He finally threw on a pair of black cords, a white crew-neck tee shirt, and a grayish-blue V-neck sweater before dashing back down the stairs.  
  
If his suspicions were accurate, right about this moment, his counterpart, who should have been right here in this life, was waking up to the life of Milliardo Peacecraft… and was probably in for one heck of a bumpy ride, too.   
  
"The bugger had better not be drinking my Wild Turkey," he grumbled to himself as he bypassed his daughter and in-laws who, no doubt, had no clue as to why he wasn't going to open up presents with them. Rather, he made a dash for the car keys.  
  
Of course, his Ferrari was no longer there, either. He growled in exasperation, as all he had to choose from were a set of Nissan and Volkswagen keys. Figuring that the Nissan ones most likely belonged to a minivan or some other rather dull mommy-car, he decided right away that they must belong to practical, no-nonsense Lu. He pictured himself more likely to drive a Passat or a Jetta, or something along those lines. Something with at least some degree of kick. He grabbed the Volkswagen keys, and slid himself into the garage, all the while praying that Zechs Merquise would not get any ideas about taking his Ferrari for a spin. Ace pilot or not, there were just certain things that should not be messed with…  
  
Ironically enough, his ride was no less than a cyber-green Beetle.  
  
"A freaking Bug…" he grunted, hand slapping his forehead, "It's gotta be Noin's. I wouldn't be caught dead driving a Bug. A chartreuse one, to top it all off." He peered inside for a confirmation, which he promptly received upon seeing a daisy sticking out of the built-in flower vase, a baby seat in the back, and a parking sticker reading "MCSE Faculty". He quickly did an about-face, and decided that maybe he'd take the Nissan SUV instead. He was going to find out exactly where the hell he was, and how quickly he could get back home.   
  
He drove around for what seemed like an eternity, trying to find any recognizable clues of his whereabouts. Yet nothing looked even vaguely familiar. From the looks of it, he was in a predominantly English-speaking country. Relatively close to either pole, judging by the –25 C degree temperature outside. He could be anywhere in the US, Canada, or the UK, to cite only a few possibilities, and he figured that he probably would not know for sure until he spoke to one of the locals.   
  
He pulled into a gas station, and asked about the best way to get to the spaceport, and was quite mystified when three different attendants came to his aid, one with a heavy Scottish accent, one with a decidedly Texan one, and one who sounded an awful lot like a Quebecois, all three arguing quite loudly as to which was the fastest way to get there. He concluded that, whatever his place really was, it was definitely getting a bit too Dr. Seuss for his taste. Even more confused, and now nursing a headache, Milliardo paid the credits he owed, and drove on, not exactly sure whether he was going in the right direction.  
  
He circled around the downtown core, noticing that it looked awfully underdeveloped for an Earth city, as though it were still very much in its infancy. Yet, he could not see any evidence of a weather control dome that would otherwise identify it as a space colony. Or, if there was one, its span must definitely be above and beyond anything that he had ever seen first-hand. He figured that he was most likely on a self-sustaining planet. But was it necessarily Earth, and at any rate, was it the Earth he knew?

*******  
  
His suspicion was confirmed upon coming into view of the spaceport building.  
  
"Damn," he thought, "how in the hell did I end up on Mars?"   
  
He figured it mattered very little, since he would probably be on a shuttle home in a matter of hours. And yet, at the same time, he could not help but marvel at how much the Red Planet had changed since he last saw it. It was now a fully inhabitable and quite picturesque, if only slightly surreal land. Sure, he had seen reports and news updates on the progress of the Terraforming project since leaving. He had read statistics on the largest weather-controlled system ever implemented by humans, even watched documentaries on the up-and-coming organically grown super-crops from Mars. But never would he have imagined that, in just a decade, the Terraforming Team had turned things around in such a dramatic way, building futuristic cities and top-notch farmlands out of the hard, inhospitable red dirt and inhumane temperatures that he remembered all too well.  
  
"Always knew Noin was in this for all the right reasons," he smiled as he walked into the spaceport terminal towards the ticket counter, "Unlike me… Now let's set things straight, and send her real husband back to her… Poor bugger probably won't know what to do with himself in my reality, all alone at Christmastime without his wife and kids…"  
  
***********  
  
Instead…  
"I'm sorry, sir, but all the flights are booked solid right up until the 31st. The earliest that I can get you on a shuttle back to Earth would be an 8:30 AM flight into London Heathrow, arriving on January 1st at 9:00 AM local time…"   
  
"Damn! Not nearly good enough," he thought. Figuring that arguing logistics with a rather powerless ticket agent would probably get him nowhere fast, Milliardo resorted to the next best thing: he called into his office, hoping to pull some strings to get a Preventer craft to take him home. As a diplomat, he had always had access to such privileges. In this case, he did not feel particularly guilty about taking full advantage of them, since this definitely classified as an emergency situation, at least in his book.  
  
Instead, as soon as he got through to Lady Une's secretary and announced himself, the young girl, whom he recognized as Eileen the intern, began to unabashedly laugh her head off over the phone. Finding her behaviour most disrespectful, he asked for an explanation, which she promptly and quite gladly returned, her voice now glaring with anger.  
  
"Listen, you freak, I don't know who you are, or how you got this number in the first place, but you've obviously done your homework. Only, you could have chosen a more plausible name for yourself, since any idiot KNOWS that Milliardo Peacecraft died in the war. Now get the hell off of my phone line before I start tracing the call and send a patrol over to kick your ass! Lady Une's way too busy for this kind of crap and, quite frankly, so am I! Oh, and have yourself a merry Christmas!"  
  
"Double damn," he cursed inwardly as he went to take a seat in the waiting lounge and dropped his head in his hands, "merry Christmas indeed. How the hell did my life just up and disappear into nothingness? What does it mean, that I'm now stuck being, or rather pretending to be Zechs Merquise, whether I like it or not? Aside from that, Lu is not that stupid, she'll know right away that I'm not the same man she married…" He figured whatever reason there was for all that mess, it didn't justify dragging her and her family into it because of some higher entity he must have ticked off…"   
  
Life truly was the pits, he concluded, and for the first time in years, Milliardo felt that gut-wrenching fear again, the one that had pushed him to shun each and every personal attachment or friendship. He was again letting people down, simply by being the emotionally inept, neurosis-ridden freak he was.  



	3. Pretender Wind

Chapter 3: Pretender Wind 

  
Milliardo wasn't too sure just how much time had past since realizing that he could not go back to his life, and was indeed stuck on Mars, living the life of a man who looked exactly like him, but had little else in common. Except for the fact that, at some point, they had both shared the same name, and loved the same woman.  
  
He looked up, only to take notice of the fact that the sky was already darkening and, having had no food since the night before, he was downright ravenous.   
"Great," he thought, "I'm supposed to play family, and yet I've already screwed it up by disappearing for most of Christmas day. Noin is not going to be a happy camper…"  
  
Thus he decided it would be a wise idea to at least try to find his way back to the Merquises' residence, where, hopefully, he would explain his circumstances to his once-best friend and, hopefully, she wouldn't commit him to the nearest loony bin.  
  
Just as he walked back to his parking spot, he caught sight of his car, or rather, Zechs Merquise's car, being wheeled away by a bright orange tow truck. Deciding in that split second that things could not possibly get any worse, Milliardo broke into a frantic jog to catch up to the vehicle, all the while shouting at the driver to stop.  
  
And stop he did, much to Milliardo's relief. He reached the tow truck, ready to pay for whichever fine he owed, only to be greeted by a familiar impish grin.  
"You!" he growled in disbelief as he recognized the truck driver as the young man from the liquor store incident the night before.  
"Dude!" the youth greeted, as though they had been friends. For his part, Milliardo just wanted to wring his neck, quite sure that the young man was to blame for his current state of affairs. Instead, he managed to restrain himself enough to ask what on earth he was doing on Mars.  
  
"Took you advice, man," the youth grinned proudly, "got myself a part-time job, then I'm gonna go back to school after the holidays. Terraforming sounded a whole lot more fun than law, so here I am…" He kept grinning, as though expecting Milliardo to shake his hand and congratulate him on making such a wise choice.  
"Your wife's gonna teach me a couple of classes," he commented casually, "I hear she's the best there is, but she's one hell of a tough marker," then gasped as Milliardo grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him half-way through the rolled-down window.  
  
"She. Is not. My wife," he uttered slowly, punctuating every pause with a yank at the young man's collar, "And you know it, so why don't you cut the crap, and send me right back home, before I get really aggravated?"  
"Hey, dude, relax, man!" the youth protested as he managed to wiggle himself out of Milliardo's grasp, "Look, why don't you get in, and I'll give you a ride home, and we can talk about it on the way… ok?"  
  
Figuring that he had nothing to lose, considering he was completely lost and his car was being towed, Milliardo resigned to comply and climbed into the passenger seat.

****************  
  
"So. Why am I here?" he resolved to ask after the first few minutes elapsed in silence.  
"Simple," the young man replied, his eyes fixed on the highway, "somebody up there is looking out for you, and wants you to have this glimpse…"  
"Glimpse… of what?" Milliardo inquired skeptically.  
"That, I'm afraid, is for you to figure out," the young man replied, once again sounding eerily like the late Treize Khushrenada. Which only contributed to frustrate Milliardo even more.  
"Listen, kid, I'm really not in the mood for solving riddles," he groaned, "in a few minutes you're going to drop me off in the home of complete strangers, who expect me to act as though I'm part of their family. I would at least appreciate knowing what the point is for all this mess, and who it is, up there, that hates my guts!"  
  
"Dude," the young man replied, "You're not getting this. You were sent out here because there is something you need to learn. Something that the person who sent you here did not learn until it was too late for him. It is not out of spite, but rather out of caring, that this somebody wished this experience upon you."  
  
"Fine," Milliardo grumbled, "so how long is this 'glimpse' going to take? I'm way too busy to monkey around indeterminately. I need to be back in my office on the 27 at the latest, preferably sooner. And I need to accompany my sister on a diplomatic tour of Europe beginning on January 2, so the latest that I can stay to play this game of yours is tomorrow night."   
  
The young man shook his head in exasperation, and continued driving. Sometimes he wasn't too sure why he had accepted the mission in the first place. As far as his opinion was concerned, this guy was a hopeless case. Now, he almost wished that he had taken on the Dekim Barton assignment instead. For some reason, older humans tended to be a lot less threatening. Still quite temperamental, but at least they didn't normally go around grabbing people by their shirt collars and shaking them about like rag dolls.   
  
The rest of the drive continued in uncomfortable silence. Before he knew it, Milliardo found himself in the friendly, vaguely familiar surroundings of the Merquises' neighbourhood. Among the Tudor-style houses decorated with Christmas lights, he soon identified the one that he was to call home for the duration of the "glimpse". The one that he would share with Lucrezia Noin and her children, pretending to be family guy Zechs Merquise.  
  
"Now, go along and I guarantee you it won't take you too long to figure it out," the young man instructed as he played with the controls to lower and release the SUV in front of the driveway.  
"We'll meet again once you have learned what you're here to learn. Then you can go home and it's business as usual." With that, he took off, leaving a rather unsatisfied and quite puzzled Milliardo standing on the sidewalk in the freezing cold, eyes transfixed on the white Christmas lights outlining the house's silhouette in the darkness. Inside, he could see people socializing by the fireplace. People with whom he would be expected to fit in the moment he walked through the door. His stomach churned, and he was overcome by the irresistible urge to run. Where to, he had no idea, but at the time it didn't seem to matter…  
  
He was so lost in his dilemma that he had not noticed the little dark-haired girl as she came to look out the window and spotted him outside, standing in the front yard. Before he could resolve to walk away for good, the front door flew open, and the little girl came out running towards him, calling for her father.  
  
"Daddy, where have you been?" she inquired softly as she hugged him for dear life, "we were worried about you. You didn't even open your presents… They're not gonna call you back to work for tonight, are they?" Suddenly, the urge to run subsided, and he instinctively lifted the child into his arms and began walking towards the door. Yes, it was still mighty cold on Mars, he thought, and he would not have Lucrezia Noin's child catching pneumonia on his account.  
  
"They're not going to call me back to work," he smiled reassuringly, "it's Christmas… I sent everybody home to be with their families and eat turkey… Speaking of which, I don't know about you, but I'm starved…"  
"Good!" the girl cheered, "Better hurry, then, before all the cookies are gone… Mom says dinner's not for another hour, 'cuz we gotta wait for Auntie Re and Uncle Heero to come in with their shuttle… And Uncle Duo's already had twelve of grandma's chocolate-dipped shortbreads…"  
  
At the mention of which, Milliardo paled, remembering from one of his sister's parties how the ex-pilots, who had always remained in touch, could really shake things up…  
"Oh, brother… Looks like we're hosting the whole gang."  
  
"You guys coming in or do I have to lock you out for good?" a female voice called from the door, and Milliardo recognized the strawberry-blonde, heavily pregnant woman as Noin's best friend Sally Po.  
"Jeez, it's freezing, out there… what are you guys set on, standard Saskatchewan weather? Nice to see you, Zechs. Preventers finally let you come home and enjoy some Christmas cheer, huh?" With that, Sally gave him a sisterly hug, then proceeded to shut the door and lead the way into the living room, where the rest of the guests, strangely enough all female, were engaged in a rather heated game of Trivial Pursuit.  
  
"Where are the guys?" Milliardo inquired as he warmed his hands in front of the fireplace, his daughter promptly disappeared into the adjacent den to play with the other pilots' children.  
"In the kitchen," Une replied, "Lu's in there, too, making sure they don't blow the whole place to smithereens or anything…"  
"Yah, knowing Duo's in there, I'd say that's a legitimate concern," Dorothy added, "considering last time he was allowed in the kitchen, he put tinfoil in the microwave…"  
"Ohmygosh, that was funny as hell," Hilde laughed out loud, "I heard this crackling, popping sound, like microwave popcorn… Didn't give it too much thought at the time. Next thing I know, I turn around, and I see flames coming out of the microwave door!"  
"Think that's bad? You haven't heard Relena tell the story about Heero and the rice cooker," Catherine pointed out, "I just about peed myself laughing! I mean, how on earth do you make a rice cooker explode?"  
"Takes serious skill, if you ask me…" Sally pointed out, feeling quite lucky that her own husband, behind the self-proclaimed chauvinistic façade, was really quite the spiffy cook.  
  
Seeing how the ladies were starting to merrily gang up against their husbands, Milliardo decided that seemed like as good a time as any to take his leave and finally face his own supposed wife. Who, to his utter dismay, was quite busy taking out the day's frustrations on a completely innocent butternut squash. The way she wielded the professional knife and, blow after blow, hacked the poor thing into perfect, evenly spaced slices sent a chill up the ex-Lightning Count's spine, and he hesitated one moment before walking straight into the lion's den.   
  
Besides, the unlikely chefs seemed busy enough to not notice him standing in the doorway…  
"Come on, Wuffers, it really works, I swear," Duo Maxwell cajoled the sniffly black-haired man who, for his part, had a few choice words for the onions that he was intent on cutting.  
"I'm totally serious, this is a genuine tip I got from a cooking show: to stop your eyes from stinging, you gotta stick your head in the freezer. Right, Lorenzo?" Duo continued, this time seeking validation from a true professional chef (not to mention recreational prankster).  
"Sure, it does," Noin's brother confirmed enthusiastically, "don't you ever watch Iron Chef? Heck, I do it all the time when I'm cutting onions!"  
  
Somewhat convinced, Wufei proceeded to grumble an "Alright, I'll give it a shot", then went and took his place in front of the fridge, his face looking into the contents of the freezer.  
"Not like that, man!" Duo corrected, "You have to really stick it in, not just stand in front of it, otherwise it'll take for ever!" With that, the braided ex-pilot gave Wufei a light shove, enough to tip the Preventer's head all the way into the freezer. Then they all waited. And waited. Milliardo could see Noin and Quatre Winner, hands clamped over their mouths as they desperately tried not to burst out laughing their heads off. Trowa Barton, for his own part, was also having a hard time keeping a straight face. Duo and Lorenzo were elbowing each other, obvious partners in crime.  
  
Finally, after a good two minutes of that, Wufei began to grow impatient, seen as his eyes continued to sting like a son-of-a-gun…  
"Alright, Maxwell, how long is this supposed to take?" he demanded, "I don't think this is working…"  
At which Duo grinned like a kid, whipped out a digital camera from gods-know-where, and proceeded to take a snapshot of Wufei in that awkward position, all the while commenting quite casually,   
'Oh, it doesn't REALLY work… Just wanted to see if you'd do it…"  
  
Chaos ensued as a rather infuriated Wufei grabbed the professional chef's knife from Noin's cutting board and proceeded to chase Maxwell with it, quite determined to exact revenge for the prank by severing a good few inches off his friend's prized braid.   
  
"Aw, man, guys… We just renovated the kitchen," Milliardo heard Noin plead. Quite alarmed, he resolved to not take any chances with crazy ex-Gundam pilots and sharp objects, and put his old nickname to good use by barging into the kitchen, grabbing Noin by the arm, and just as quickly whisking her out of there before either could get in harm's way.  
  
Once in the relative safety of the hallway, it took Milliardo a few seconds to clue into the fact that he still held a death grip on Noin's forearms. She, for her part, kept looking at him in that frowning, mystified air of hers, as though he were the one behaving like a lunatic, and Maxwell and Chang's behaviour were the norm instead.  
  
"Zechs… are you alright?" she finally asked, pinning her indigo eyes on his, as though wanting to pierce through an imaginary mask.  
"They're… are they always like that?" he managed to fumble for his own part, his thumb gesturing towards the pandemonium unfolding in the kitchen. She hadn't changed much, he noticed. Her hairstyle was somewhat softer, less military… she must be trying to grow it past her shoulders, he figured. She actually wore barrettes now, to keep her bangs out of her face, one thing that the space-loving tomboy he knew would not have been caught dead owning. He decided motherhood definitely suited her…  
  
"Pretty much," Noin quipped, as though it was a silly question to ask, "I've come to think it must be some weird form of male bonding…" Then, slightly louder, as though the guests in the adjacent living room were meant to hear,   
"So… I take it you guys managed to solve that whole big muck-up down at the weather control central?"  
That was his cue to lie as well, blame his absence on a work-related emergency so that their guests would not wonder how on earth Zechs Merquise managed to be such an inconsiderate, antisocial Grinch on Christmas day. All he could do in response was nod, the lie refusing to surface to his lips. 

***********************  
  
He had to talk to her, tell her the truth, come what might. He was pretty sure she would not believe him. After all, Noin had always been a Scully-type personality. Very rational, evidence-driven… How on earth he was supposed to explain to her that his life was elsewhere, and that he was only there for a so-called glimpse, he hadn't the slightest clue. The concept still managed to evade him, despite the fact that he was living it first-hand. On the other hand, he knew that he could not pull off pretending to be Zechs Merquise. Even assuming he managed to fool everyone, his conscience would certainly not shut up about it.  
  
Half-way up the stairs, he slapped himself mentally as he took notice of his poor choice of a private place to talk to her. He was leading her towards their bedroom, or rather, the bedroom that belonged to Lucrezia Noin and Zechs Merquise. Definitely not his idea of an emotionally neutral place… especially considering how she kept looking at him in that worried, almost maternal way, even as she shut the door behind them.  
  
"You didn't have to cover for me," he blurted out, almost immediately kicking himself for such a brilliant start.  
"You're right, I didn't," she conceded right away. He noticed how her lips had narrowed into one of her nervous smiles, and right away diverted his gaze to the frosty window.  
"But I guess it beat the heck out of having to tell my kids I hadn't the slightest clue where their father had disappeared to for the whole damn day," she continued, no longer hiding her annoyance.  
"You're right, and I'm really sorry," he recited off his improvised script, "The timing certainly could have been better… it's quite complicated to explain, so please bear with me if it doesn't seem to make any sense. Noin," he braced himself, "this is not my life. I don't belong here, on Mars… I woke up this morning, and I was here, but, see, I am not Zechs Merquise…" He watched expectantly, trying to decipher the confused expression on her face.  
  
"I am Milliardo Peacecraft," he specified, as though speaking to a child. At that, Lucrezia flopped face-down on the bed, and groaned in exasperation, her head in her hands,  
"Aw, for the love of Pete… AGAIN?!! Zechs, I thought we got way past this whole identity crisis thing a LONG time ago… Why can't you just pick a name, either one, I don't really care which one at this point, and STICK with it, damit?"  
  
Milliardo found himself getting discouraged. Admittedly, he had done more than his fair share of switching back and forth between the two in the past. And, short of explaining this whole situation as an alternate reality or any such unscientific nonsense, he really had no idea how the two names had come to give life to two actual human beings, each with entirely different lives…  
"Noin, I realize this sounds insane," he persevered, only to find himself on the receiving end of her sarcasm,  
"Gee, ya think? First you give me some nonsense about waking up to someone else's life, like we're all a bunch of strangers, rather than your own family. Then, classic… another name switch, just to keep things interesting. And then, just to add to the overall weirdness, you call me by my maiden name, which you haven't done in at least ten years! What the heck is going on?"  
  
Silence ensued for a very uncomfortable moment. Milliardo was beginning to wonder whether attempting to explain his strange set of circumstances had been a good idea at all. Then he saw Noin's face pale, and her expression become somber.  
  
"They're not sending you out on a mission, are they?" she broke the silence, her voice quivering ever so slightly, "Zechs… Is something going on with the Preventers that I should know about? It sounds like you're trying to distance yourself from us… Like you're getting ready to leave… Are you?"  
  
He wasn't at all sure how it had happened, but before he knew it, Milliardo Peacecraft had his arms wrapped around the woman who had once known him better than anyone else ever would. Somehow as he stroked her hair and felt her tension literally dissolve against his body, all the comforting words that he had never been any good at seemed to come to him spontaneously. He would not leave. There was no need to fight again. Not now and, hopefully, not ever. He belonged right there, with her and the children.   
  
"So, really, you just got familied-out," Lucrezia muttered against his chest, quite comfortable in the embrace.  
"Y... yeah, that's it," the lie came out before he had time to censor it.   
"On Christmas day.." she repeated, emphasizing his peculiar timing, "Honey, you're weird. Scary thing is I can actually understand that… I'm getting a little antsy myself, with all the guests, and the holiday stuff, and… oh, bugger, I LEFT THE GUYS IN THE KITCHEN COMPLETELY UNATTENDED!"  
With that, she bolted to her feet and made a run for the stairs, just giving herself enough time to turn around and plead,  
"Next time you need time to yourself, just please let me know where you are… or at least take your cell phone so I know you're safe. Ok?"  
  
For a reason that Milliardo could not even begin to understand, posing as Lucrezia Noin's husband, holding her as though he had any right to do so, pretending to belong in her life and her family suddenly felt a whole lot more right than telling her the truth about his real life as Sanq's successful, envied, lonely-as-a-dog politician and bachelor of the year… 

****  
  
"Uh… Lu," he heard Duo's voice holler from downstairs, "the Wuffinator spilled that whole big stock pot of carrot soup… Ouch! Easy, Rambo!"  
"Never a dull moment around here," Milliardo decided, as he smoothed the wrinkles on his pants and resolved to join the clean-up patrol.  
  



	4. The Diaper Blues

Chapter 4:The Diaper Blues... 

Milliardo Peacecraft awoke to the smell of bacon, and the sound of children playing downstairs. He knew right away that, no, he wasn't quite back home yet, and that he was still very much in the midst of his "glimpse". Yet, for some reason, he didn't seem as displeased with it has he had been the morning before.  
  
He rolled over, to find Noin's side of the bed empty, something that he was quite relieved with. It had taken all his willpower the night before not to take advantage of the situation... Heavens know he would have been more than willing, had she not believed him to be somebody else.   
  
"She could still make a killing, even after two kids," he caught himself thinking, then immediately slapped himself mentally for having such unorthodox thoughts towards a married woman. One, no less, who used to be his best pal, and was now married to his "good" counterpart.  
  
He resolved to make a mental checklist of all the things that he had learned so far from the glimpse. He figured the more he could come up with, the shorter his stay would have to be, the sooner he could be back to his real life, dealing with all those things that, thrilling or not, were familiar to him nonetheless. The office, the diplomatic tours with his sister, those gun-damned figures that were still sitting on his desk waiting to be properly analyzed, for all he knew...  
  
And so, he began. This Christmas, he had learned...  
  
* That Relena can't cook worth diddley, but Heero makes a kick-ass 7-layer dip

* That for the first time, his niece actually sat on his lap and acted as though she genuinely liked him, instead of being intimidated by him

* That she was going to be 4 years old on June 20, and Heero and Pagan already had her fencing, much to Relena's disgruntlement

* That Dorothy must have been referring to Quatre, when she gave him that piece of advice on "old flames", because in this reality they were very much an item

* That, contrary to what he had always thought, the Maxwell kids were not the obnoxious little monsters that Wufei made them out to be, but they were actually rather cute

* That their eldest, Helene, was about the same age as his Vicki, and the two were super-glued to each other whenever they were together, often passing for sisters, being as their mothers looked like sisters as well...

* That, oh, sweet justice, Wufei was about to become the proud father of twin girls, and heaven help the poor bugger who ever makes either of them cry...

* That he and Noin still liked to bug each other, even after burying the hatchet some time after the war. Some of their pranks had gone down in Preventer history, like the Vaseline-all-over-the-mouse one, or the remote-controlled office chair...

* That Solo Maxwell had better not get any ideas about his little girl and mistletoe, at least until she's twenty-five... or thirty

* That his son, at thirteen months old, was already a chick magnet in his own right. He sure knew how to look cute and work a female crowd...

* That he never would have figured Catherine to leave the circus, go back to school, become one of the hottest fashion designers in the wedding gown industry, and adopt a kid, all of this without ever thinking about marriage herself.

* That he was wrong thinking that Maxwell and Schbeiker would never amount to very much, being as he was now head of the L2 chapter of the Preventers, and she was the chief security consultant for both the Preventers and the Government of Sanq. It was probably her fault that he couldn't hack in with Relena's username and password to get to his report... 

* That he never truly gave either Trowa or Heero much credit for their social skills, but he should have. Pump enough alcohol in them, and they're a riot...

* That Relena was coping just fine, without her big brother working for her, and that Heero had taken over his job as her associate and, despite the rough edges, was showing remarkable aptitude for diplomatic work. He still wasn't shy about using his death glare, when the occasion called for it, and had even taught little Katie how to do it.

* That everybody seemed to like Zechs Merquise better because, unlike Milliardo Peacecraft, he actually did fit in.

He sat up in bed, startled by that last revelation.  
"That's it!" he exclaimed, as he bolted out of bed, and rummaged in the drawers for some clothes to throw on, 'This is what I'm here to learn! That I have been isolating myself from my own friends and family!"  
Still in his pajamas, he opened the window all the way, and stuck his head outside, looking from left to right for the young man in the bright orange tow truck to come take him back, as he promised he would after the lesson was learned.  
  
"Alright, you win," he stated out loud, although unsure that he was being heard at all, "I promise I'll call Relena right away, and ask if I can join in for her New Year's party! And I'll be gracious, and socialize with the Maxwells and the Changs, and I'll make an effort to get to know my brother-in-law and my niece..."   
  
Yet nothing bright and orange appeared from either end of Glenora Drive.  
"Aw, come on... what more do you want?" Silence, except for the neighbours' kids barging out the door to play in the snow.  
"Fine... I won't work all the time, either. I'll make sure I don't burn out," he conceded with a shiver, quickly ducking inside and shutting the window to avoid being seen in a less-than-dignified state.  
"I'm going to go take a shower," he muttered to himself, wondering whether they would wait until he was fully dressed before sending him back. Heck, he could probably squeeze in breakfast, too...  
  
Just as he motioned towards the bathroom, he heard a baby cry from down the hall. Deciding it was probably Ben, he resolved to at least check things out first, before calling Noin to deal with it. And, sure enough, as soon as he entered the child's room, Ben's big blue eyes lit up through the tears, and he reached out to be picked up.  
  
"Hey, kiddo," Milliardo soothed as he lifted the toddler out of the crib, "yes, yes, you're up. Let's get you out of this... cage-thingy here, huh? Let's go have some breakfast, say hi to mommy... what do you say, sounds good?"   
The child smiled for a second as he settled in his arms, then resumed his wailing, and Milliardo suddenly realized, or rather smelled, what was upsetting him so.  
  
"Oh, boy... I was afraid it would come to this," he muttered, holding the baby at arm's length, "let's go find mommy, ok?"  
  
**********  
  
He bolted down the stairs with the wailing toddler, only to be told that his wife had just gone to take a shower, and rush back up, hoping to catch her before she was in any state of undress.  
  
"Uh... Lu? May I come in?" he inquired, standing outside the door to the master bathroom. He could hear the water running.  
"Yeah, sure. What's up?"  
He took it as his cue that it was ok to go in, and stuck his head inside. His eyes might as well have bugged out of his skull as he stood there, dumbfounded and unable to react.   
She was already IN the shower. Naked. And she didn't seem too fazed by him being there at all. In fact, she kept looking at him with that puzzled, inquiring expression, as though wanting to know what the problem was.  
  
Milliardo quickly retreated out the door, his face suddenly burning. Yep, she could still make a killing, even after two kids...  
"Uh... it's Ben," he fumbled, "He's crying..."  
"I can hear that," Noin replied from inside, "And?"  
"I think he needs a diaper change..." he specified.  
"Makes sense," she stated calmly, "If we're out of diapers in the nursery, there's a new pack in the garage..."  
"No, we have plenty of those..." Milliardo explained, dreading the turn that the events were taking.  
"Ok, then... are we out of wipes? There's more of those too..."  
"Nope... got those, too. Look, I was wondering..."  
"What?"  
"Never mind..."  
  
*************  
  
He laid the toddler on the changing table, unsure as to what to do next.  
"How did I get myself in this mess, again?" he thought as his hands worked to free the child's legs from the sleeper, "Oh, right... someone up there likes me so very much that they wished this on me... I must remember to thank them when I get back... and kill them again, despite their being already dead!"  
  
He turned away in disgust as he unfastened the diaper.  
"Oh, God... why me?"   
He began scanning the room for latex gloves to at least dispose of the mess without risk of "contamination". This was definitely not his day...  
  
"Dad... you're looking at them," a small voice piped from behind him. He turned to see his daughter Victoria, standing in the doorway.  
"The wipes... they're right in front of you," she specified, then proceeded to approach, and hand him one from the bright turquoise plastic box. She then held the diaper pail open for her father to dispose of the soiled one.  
  
Seeing as how he kept looking at it in disgust and not make a move, the little girl finally took over. With the practiced ease of a graduate of the babysitting course, she proceeded to clean up, then clothe her baby brother in a new diaper.  
For his part, Milliardo felt rather useless, being taught by an eight-year-old.  
  
"It's alright to be a bit grossed out the first time," she explained matter-of-factly as she snapped the sleeper back on, "I bet you they didn't teach you that about human babies..."  
  
She hesitated a bit before handing the child back to him. In fact, she scrutinized his face from up close, with a rather clinical countenance. She poked his nose once, pinched each cheek, tugged at his hair, then, satisfied with the results of the examination, she took a step back, all the while withholding her brother from him.  
  
"They did a really good job," she muttered in awe, "You look just like him... could have fooled me, that's for sure!"  
"Rats," Milliardo thought, "she knows. She knows I'm not her father... Oh, well, might as well tell the truth now..."  
  
"What did you do with my dad?" the little girl inquired, refusing to look scared in the least.  
"Your dad is safe," Milliardo reassured, "We kind of... traded places for a while."  
"So you could learn about humans, and he could learn about aliens?" the child asked skeptically.  
"Yeah... something like that..."  
"Jeez... I knew he had a weird job, but this mission takes the cake," the child muttered, "If mom finds out, she'll really freak... So lemme get this straight... You come in peace, right?"  
"I do," Milliardo stated, "I would never do anything to hurt you, or your mom and dad, or your baby brother."   
To his surprise, the little girl's expression softened up immediately. Before he knew it, she had walked over and extended her hand to him.  
"What do they call you, on your planet?"  
"They call me Milliardo," he replied.  
"Then welcome to Mars, Milliardo," she greeted as she shook his hand proudly, "I'm Vicki Merquise, but you probably already know that. Don't worry, I won't blow your cover with mom. Guess you'll need me to show you around and stuff... We humans probably live very differently than you are used to. Hey, do you like pancakes? Wait... you've probably never had them before... Anyway, they're yummy! We're in luck, because my uncle just made some for breakfast, and lemme tell you, he makes the very best in the world..."  



	5. What About My New Skates!

_Warning: this particular chapter has a teensy-tiny limish part somewhere in the middle. Don't worry, it's all rather mild, and you'll see it coming from a mile away. If it bugs you, please feel free to skip those couple of paragraphs... the plot won't be seriously affected._

Chapter 5: What About My New Skates?!! 

With the diaper crisis now resolved, and little Victoria Merquise convinced that he was indeed an alien visiting from some faraway planet, Milliardo Peacecraft heaved a sigh of relief. He certainly wasn't feeling anywhere near proud of himself, for having so blatantly lied to a child, making her the unwitting accomplice to his dubious set of circumstances. However, he had managed to buy himself enough time to justify his presence within the Merquise family, at least until the Powers that Be decided to return him to his rightful reality. Which, if his hunch was correct, could be any time now...

He had, after all, learned a good deal of things... What else could the glimpse possibly show him?

As he was thus stuffing his face with pancakes, Noin entered the kitchen, fully dressed, as though ready to go out. Taking a look at her husband and kids, still very much un-showered and in their pajamas, she rolled her eyes, and proceeded to flop down on one of the chairs.  
"Aw, man... Zechs, are we gonna be able to get going some time today?" she asked expectantly.  
"Go where?" he managed to mumble, caught by surprise in between a particularly large mouthful. Victoria quickly came to the rescue, slapping her forehead quite theatrically.  
"Holy cow! We totally forgot about the Boxing Day sale thingy! Right, dad?"  
"Oh, yeah!" he nodded, making quick work of the rest of his plate, and heading for the dishwasher to clean up after himself.

****

Boxing Day sale? He couldn't help a shudder at the thought. The crowds, the pushing and shoving, the lineups at the checkouts, all just to get a good deal on something that didn't quite sell before Christmas... As he rushed in and out of the shower, and hastily threw some clothes back on, he simply could not believe that fate would be so ironically sadistic to him. As if the whole diaper-changing business hadn't been enough trauma for one day...

By the time he rushed down the stairs, Noin already had the kids dressed and ready to go.   
"Catch," she called playfully as she tossed him the keys to the SUV. Just then did it occur to him that he hadn't the slightest clue where the mall was.

"Mom, can we take Buggles instead?" Vicki pleaded, once again anticipating the situation, "It's easier to park.... Betcha the mall will be a zoo today..." Damn, that kid was smart... Milliardo watched Lucrezia shrug and grab the keys to the Beetle then, without a second thought, head for the driver's seat.  
"She never lets anyone drive her Bug," Vicki whispered in his ear, "Not even dad..."

***

He had always had a hunch that Noin didn't have much patience for shopping, even as a teenager. But watching her make her way amidst the crowd now was downright scary. There she was, braving the department store mob, expertly steering the stroller left and right, wiggling herself into every little passageway that the dizzying crowd opened. He tried not to lose sight of her as she made quick work of getting from A to B with methodic, almost Mobile Doll-like determination. He, for his part, kept lagging behind, muttering sheepish excuses left, right and centre, as he stepped on countless toes in the effort to keep up. He had no idea just how many people were living on Mars now, but he was pretty certain that they must all be squeezed into the mall right that moment...

Seeing as how she kept losing him, Noin finally grabbed his hand, as though he too had been one of her children. Finding a relatively quiet corner to sneak into, she proceeded to again pin her eyes on him, that familiar worried expression clouding their otherwise remarkably clear sapphire hue.  
"Zechs, is everything alright? You look like a deer caught in the headlights..."  
"I'm fine. It's just..." he began, trying to think of something that would distract her from his weird behaviour, "Do we really have to be here? I mean, look at this place, it's insane..."  
"I know," she sighed sympathetically as she affectionately brushed some stray locks out of his hair, "I promise, we'll just get Vicki's new skates, and then get the heck out. Forget about the rice cooker... It's almost worth paying full price next week."  
"Alright," he swallowed hard, "Where do we need to go?" He felt his courage quickly dissolve as she proceeded to point to the jam-packed escalator.  
"Fifth floor up," she specified, "kids' department." She must have seen the colour drain from his cheeks, because she soon had another idea.

"Tell you what... You take this escalator down to the men's department... It's usually pretty safe, in there. Go to the expensive suits section or something... Won't find too many people there. I'll go up with the kids, get the skates, then I'll come find you. Sounds good?"  
"Want me to look after Ben?" he offered, unsure as to how to repay her for letting him bail out.  
"Nah... you go ahead. If it's not too crazy, up there, I might get him some new OshKosh..." With that, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek and, before he knew it, she was again expertly wiggling her way through the crowd towards the escalator.

***

Noin had been right, he observed as he leisurely strolled into the almost-deserted designer suits section of the otherwise ant- farm-busy department store. He began to casually walk around the displays, feeling the fabrics and making assessments on their quality. He came to a stop right before a mannequin that was sporting a very distinguished-looking charcoal suit.  
"Armani..." he nodded appreciatively, seeing the price tag dangle from one of the buttons, "I didn't know you could get that on Mars..."

"Would you care to try it on in your size?" a female voice startled him out of his musings. He turned around to see a rather attractive, elegantly dressed twenty-something smiling back at him. In one split second, he decided that, since Noin was probably going to be a while, he may as well keep himself entertained until then.  
"I'd love to," he replied with an equally charming smile, and proceeded to give the sales associate his measurements.

He truly felt like a new man as he came out of the dressing room. More to the point, he felt like his old self again. Confident, successful, charismatic Milliardo Peacecraft, looking and dressing the part for his responsibilities of diplomat... Yes, he definitely felt like a better man already, just by ditching the jeans and casual sweater...

"Oh-my-GOD!" he heard the young sales associate squeal in delight, "Sir, that suit was made for you! It's... it's... quite simply perfect," she remarked as she stepped closer and gave each sleeve a gentle tug. He felt his lips open up in an involuntary grin to mirror hers. Yes, he definitely felt a lot better now than he did at the start of the day...

"I don't think there's a single thing that needs adjusting," she cheerfully noted as she knelt to straighten out the pant cuffs, "It's as if Giorgio had designed this with you in mind..." Never mind that Giorgio Armani had been dead since the 21st Century AD... Was this girl for real, or was she just blatantly flirting with him? He found the thought quite amusing...

He received confirmation to his suspicions as she proceeded to rather suggestively run her hands down his thighs, with the excuse of smoothing out some wrinkles.  
"Stephanie, right?" he read off her name tag, "How long have you been on Mars for? You don't strike me as a colonist..." Just as the girl jumped to her feet and proceeded to recount the history of her life, he felt a most unexpected pang in the well of his stomach. Almost of... guilt?  
"Come on, Milliardo, you know damn well you're not really married to Noin..." he reminded himself as he squashed down that most unsettling gut feeling. Strangely, tough, rather than receiving comfort from it, as he could quite freely go ahead and flirt back, something in the back of his mind kept teasing and poking at him,  
"What makes you think she'd want to be married to you anyway? You're clearly not the same man she fell in love with at the Academy..."

***

He was quite amiably chatting with Stephanie about the less touristy spots in Vienna, and she was very intent in adjusting the gazillionth tie on him when Noin and the kids made their appearance.  
"Wow... don't you look handsome," she greeted cheerfully, a grin of utter pride all over her face as she proceeded to announce that she had managed to not only get the skates, but also Ben's new overalls and... "Ta-daaaaa! Rice cooker! Was on sale for 50% off... Now I don't have to rush here after class next week!" 

She then proceeded to recognize the young sales attendant, who had purposely been ignoring her.  
"Oh, hi, Steffi... Didn't realize it was you," she greeted politely, "I heard you did really well in Flight Theory last semester..."  
"Eeep... Noin-sensei?!" the girl yelped in surprise, almost wanting to apologize for not having the slightest clue that she had been flirting with her instructor's husband for the past half-hour.  
"Ready to start piloting for real?" Noin encouraged, as Zechs overlooked the scene in disbelief, feeling more than a little foolish.  
"Oh, totally, Ma'am... I look forward to being in your class!" Stephanie gushed, her eyes aglow with expectation, "No offence to my employer, but I'd rather be flying Suits than selling them..."

Noin let out an amused chuckle at her student's pun, and once again Milliardo felt like the piece of the puzzle that didn't fit anywhere...

The ride home was quite silent and uneventful. Ben had promptly fallen asleep in the baby seat, and Vicki was quite taken with the snow that had started to fall. Noin appeared content to just be leaving the mall behind, never even aware that Milliardo had seriously considered buying the suit. Zechs Merquise, for one thing, seemed to have no need whatsoever for such elegance. For all Milliardo knew, his Preventer job was such that his family actually had use for Boxing Day sales and other such penny-pinching nonsense. To Noin, the proposition of sinking a couple of grands on a designer suit must surely sound absurd to say the least... Thus Milliardo began wondering how much longer he'd have to keep up his frustrating charade before being sent home to his life.

***

"I'm going to buy the suit," Milliardo announced out of the blue as Noin began to get dinner ready. He wasn't quite sure what the point of that statement was, other than pure shock value. Instead, to his utter dismay, his wife simply replied with a rather anticlimactic,  
"Will you pass me some ginger, please?"  
He did so, more than slightly annoyed at not being taken seriously, and insisted,  
"Did you hear what I just said?"  
"Yup," was the monosyllabic reply as Noin began to peel and mince the root, together with some garlic and lemongrass.  
"And? What do you think?" he prodded, hoping to stir al least some reaction.  
"I'm a bit surprised as to why now, after years of refusing to own one" she explained matter-of-factly, "do we have a wedding to go to or something?"  
"No," he countered in an almost patronizing tone, "but suppose I want to take you out for a nice dinner... What would we wear, our uniforms?"  
"Usually, yeah," she replied absent-mindedly as she ducked to retrieve more vegetables from the fridge, then corrected herself right away, "Well, I have my black dress, and you'd normally go in your high uniform... Not that there are a lot of fancy-schmancy places on Mars..."  
"You mean the black dress you wore at the Maxwells' wedding, back in 198?" he inquired sarcastically.  
"Yup," she confirmed, much to his surprise. Admittedly, it was a fairly all-purpose evening dress, one of those classics that never went out of style... but were their finances so tight that she hadn't bought herself anything nice since then? Their cozy house and idyllic neighbourhood seemed to tell a different story...

"What? You don't think I can still fit in it?" she challenged, and Milliardo felt like he had just stirred up a real hornet's nest.  
"That's not what I meant at all," he countered nervously, his mind shouting, "Back up, back up, dig yourself out of it!"  
"Fair enough... I'll be right back," she instructed, and thus disappeared out of the kitchen, leaving Milliardo wondering just how badly in trouble he was...

She poked her head back inside, a mere five minutes later, hair pinned back by a delicate rhinestone headband, her lips sensuously red with lipstick. As she walked in, revealing that she was indeed wearing the infamous black dress, Milliardo wasn't quite sure if all of a sudden the suffocating heat was due to the wok that he was manning over the stove, or to the vision in front of him. Either way, she was certainly more worthy of his attention than the silly wok... True, it had been ages since he had seen her in it. In fact, it had been ages since he had seen her at all. But he hadn't quite remembered the dress to be clinging to all the rights spots the way it seemed to do just that very moment. Or the plunging backline, that only she could have pulled off with such grace... or the simple, almost demure cleavage, and the delicate teardrop-shaped pendent, that seemed to lead the eye just where he had previously resolved that his imagination should not venture.

He loosened up his collar as she approached, and noted the feline glint in her dark eyes. Oh, this was not good... Didn't she know he wasn't made of ice? Didn't she know every man had his breaking point, and that he had reached his that very morning with that peek at her in the shower?

Without so much as a single word, she had grabbed his arm, and pulled him into the walk-in pantry. Closing the door behind them, she leaned on it as if to prevent escape, her hands beginning to sneak under his shirt, cool fingers tingly against his overexcited skin.  
"See? It still fits just fine," she purred into his ear, her breath on his neck sending a shiver up and down his spine.   
"Ahem... yes, you... uh... make a very valid point," he debated, trying to keep his cool by forcing his mind to concentrate on anything he could see in there that wasn't her. Oatmeal, breakfast cereal, jars of baby food (ewww, strained broccoli?!), canned tomatoes...   
"But don't you ever get tired of seeing me wearing uniforms all the time?" he continued, once his normal breathing had resumed.  
"Honestly?" she smiled, "Nope... I love it when you wear your high uniform for me. It gets me all worked up..." She uttered that last part as a barely audible whisper in his ear, following it up with a soft bite to his ear lobe.

Oh, dear Lord, how was he supposed to keep himself off this woman now? He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply, in hopes of regaining at least some smidgen of control over himself. Instead, all he managed to take in was the maddening, enticing scent of French vanilla from her hair. His fingertips grazed at her bare back, all the way to her shoulders, slowly pulling on the thin spaghetti straps. He heard her gasp softly as he pushed himself closer, until the door was effectively ensuring that every inch of her body was pressed against his.  
"That's it, I'm a goner," was his last conscious thought before his lips found their way onto hers.

***

He was well past holding himself responsible for his actions, his hands, eyes and mouth more than a little busy making up for 10 years' worth of lost time. The dress, well out of the way, was now lying discarded on the baby food shelf. His pants were about to follow suit very shortly, if she had any say in it. And his shirt... well, he couldn't think of a single good reason why it was still on, being as it was completely unbuttoned, and dangling half-way off his shoulders.  
"Zechs..." her voice came out sounding hoarse, almost breathless as he explored her skin in the half-darkness. He did not hear her at first.  
"Zechs," she called again, this time slightly more agitated. He looked up at her face, eyes glazed over from the same confused feeling of waking up from the strangest dream.  
"The doorbell," she specified.  
"What? Doorbell?" he repeated in a daze, just as she rushed to slip her dress back on, then made to start buttoning up his shirt.  
"The guys are here to pick you up. I totally forgot about the game..." she muttered.  
"Game? What game?" he inquired, by now resurfacing to reality.  
"The hockey game," she explained as she dashed out of the walk-in pantry and bolted for the stairs, "Remember? Preventer Hounds versus Hell's Accountants... You guys are gonna whip some CGA butt tonight!"

"Hell's Accountants?!" he wondered out loud, picturing an amateur team of pot-bellied, balding forty-somethings, "Oh, yeah... that's right," he lied. Of course, he didn't know anything about this... Hell, he, playing in a hockey team? He had only played a couple of times that he remembered of, when he was a teenager, and he hadn't liked the game one bit. Too rough, way too physical and irrational to somebody who was used to fencing, martial arts, and chess, where it's all a matter of strategy... Nevertheless, how bad could it be, if their adversaries were indeed a bunch of accountants?  
"Hold that thought," he called to her from below the stairs as he tucked his shirt back into his pants, "I'm guessing this game won't take too long..."

"Aw, don't say that," she scolded instead, reappearing from the top of the stairs in the clothes that she had been wearing before, "The past is past, and you guys got a hell of a lot better since the last couple of times they beat you."

What? Did he hear correctly? The Hell's Accountants actually had a history of beating them? A bunch of number-crunching geeks, beating a team of physically fit Preventers, several times over?  
"They can be Canadian all they want," Noin continued as she sauntered down the stairs, "but you guys have practiced hard, you've got your team work in place... This time, you're gonna beat them, I know it." 

With that, she swung the door open, and proceeded to greet a tall, dark-haired guy, whom she referred to as Adrian. Milliardo couldn't help but note how, for all intents and purposes, the young Preventer looked like he could have been the younger brother of one of his soldiers and friends from the war, a young man named Otto, who laid down his life for him. Lucrezia politely declined his offer to come cheer for them, on accounts of having to prepare a presentation for the college's board of trustees. Before he knew it, Milliardo was clutching his bag of smelly hockey gear, packed in a minivan full of other Preventer agents with equally smelly bags, all laughing and mocking the other team and singing rowdy songs as they sped towards the ice arena. Oh, he had a real bad feeling about this one...

***

By the end of the game, Milliardo could add another precious lesson to his list: hockey was painful. Of course, that may have something to do with the Hell's Accountants being tough little buggers... He figured that, during the course of the two periods, he had managed to get himself tripped, shoved, elbowed, whacked with the stick, hit by the puck, and body-checked at least once every three to five minutes. Not to mention that his long hair was beginning to be a real inconvenience. When dashing for the net, his ponytail seemed to be the first thing that adversaries grabbed on to in their efforts to stop him. He figured next time, if there ever was one, he'd have to tie it in a samurai-style bun and tuck it under the helmet or something... Overall, not a very pleasant experience, as his bleeding nose and split lip bore witness to.

At one point, he had been whacked hard enough to actually pass out briefly. He had woken up in a matter of seconds, finding himself lying on the ice, surrounded by his team, as a rather attractive young redhead flashed a penlight in his eyes and painfully clamped his nose to stop the bleeding. Before he could stand up on his own, the guys had carried him off to the infirmary, leaving him in the capable care of the woman, whom they referred to as Sophie. Despite being in pain, he had been rather relieved with the whole situation, as he at least had an excuse to bail out of the game. It was pretty clear to everyone that, on that particular game, he was the team's weakest link. Not that he had any reason to expect much better of himself, being as he was a complete hockey newbie, haphazardly thrown in the middle of a heated game between two semi-advanced arch-rival teams...

The much-needed break had come to an abrupt stop the moment Sophie began to say and do things to make him feel very uncomfortable, such as coming extremely close to medicate his bleeding lip. Or bending over in such a way that afforded him a spectacularly detailed view of her push-up bra underneath her button-down shirt. Or, even more disturbingly, feeling his arms, legs, and chest (no doubt to detect fractures, he had told himself at first), then casually offering to kiss it better whenever he indicated that a particular part of his body hurt. He was actually rather thankful that Adrian had showed up when he did, magically dispelling the awkwardness with his mere presence. Sophie, on the other hand, had seemed rather annoyed with the interruption. It wasn't long until she had deemed Milliardo all patched up and ready to hit the bench for the rest of the game, and rather politely kicked both men out of the infirmary.

Some time during the ride home, when all but the two of them had been dropped off, Adrian finally made a very self-explanatory comment,  
"Boy, Soph' was on you like a hawk tonight, buddy..."  
"Yeah, tell me about it," Milliardo muttered uncomfortably, "Thanks for the rescue, by the way..."  
"Any time... You know, it's too bad, she's such a bright young woman, you'd figure she woulda gotten the message a long time ago..." Adrian continued emphatically, "I mean, come on, there's plenty of other unmarried fish in the sea..." 

So this was definitely a well-known issue, Milliardo noted. Sophie had a history of blatantly hitting on Zechs Merquise...  
"Adrian... How exactly do I know her?" he finally asked, wanting to know whether their relationship had ever gone past her unrequited flirtations.  
"I dunno, I can't remember which one was first, whether she started teaching your daughter figure-skating, or whether she came onboard as the team's paramedic..." Either way, Milliardo decided it all sounded rather innocent, and heaved a sigh of relief. Surely, if there had been more going on, Adrian would have known about it, and would have mentioned it at some point during their conversation. The guy certainly acted as a close friend of sorts...

"Look, man, don't feel bad about it, I'm not even sure I still have a crush on her," Adrian finally blurted out, as if on cue, "I mean, yeah, it'd be nice if she looked at me that way too, but hey, that's life... Otherwise, hell, half the original Terra team woulda hated your guts by now..."  
Milliardo cringed. What was he implying, that he had crossed the line with Sophie at some point? Or rather, that fool Zechs Merquise had?  
"What do you mean by that?" He prompted, no longer quite sure whether he wanted to find out the answer.  
"Nothing, man!" Adrian shrugged, "Just that you and Lu have been here since the beginning. I mean, people don't forget that... We all pretty much knew you two were an item, but still, I don't think there was a single guy in Terraformer that wouldn't have given his left nut to be with Instructor Noin, in your place. And I'm not telling you this to make you jealous or anything, that's just the way things were."

Why, as a matter of fact, Milliardo did feel rather jealous at that point! Wait... Zechs should have been jealous, not him...

"Then you go off and marry her, and we're all like, whoa, right on, man, good for you..."  
"But... what did I do, Adrian?" he prodded further, "What did I do to blow it?"  
"Nothing, and that's exactly the point! Hotties hit on you all the time, and you brush them off like horse flies. Sophie pretty much drools all over your pants, and you're like, sorry, man... gotta go home to my prettier, sexier, more intelligent wife. I mean, how in the hell do you do that, Merquise? You're a bona fide chick magnet, yet you act like it's a curse or something... You gonna teach us poor struggling buggers some time, so that we can start picking up what you keep dissing?"

Unsure as to how exactly he was supposed to react, Milliardo stared back at Adrian, looking more than just a little puzzled. That was when Adrian decided to drop the act, and began to unabashedly laugh his head off, just as he pulled into the Merquises' driveway. 

"Just kidding, man," the dark-haired fellow explained between gasps, seeing as how his friend didn't look any less confused, "Alright, so we did wonder how the hell a grouch like you managed to snag Noin-sensei... But you two are real good together... Don't forget that, 'cuz there's a lot of people on this planet who don't have your luck. Get some rest, Chief... you look like hell."

***

As he came through the door, Milliardo had to remind himself that all the things Adrian had said actually applied to his look-alike, Zechs Merquise, rather than him. He noted how his confusion was becoming a rather frequent occurrence, the more time he spent on Mars, whereas on the first day of the 'glimpse' he had been acutely aware of the distinct separation between one alter-ego and the other. 

He was greeted with the heavenly aroma of Thai food. Not the kind that he would take out from time to time in Sanq. No, this was the real home-cooked stuff... His mouth watered and his stomach grumbled, as he remembered fondly his earlier days on Terraformer. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing quite like a steaming bowl of green curry, or Thai basil stir-fry, for that matter, to come home to when one was sore and exhausted. And, not for want of looking, he had yet to find any one person or establishment capable of holding a candle to Noin's very own version of either.

By then quite ravenous, he looked around for the rest of the household, so that they may all sit down and eat. He only found his daughter, curled up on the living room couch, quite engrossed in a Harry Potter book.  
"Hey, Vickers... had dinner yet?" he inquired casually.  
"Oh, hi... 'dad'. Got your butts whipped again, huh?" the little girl commented. Now, how did she know that? Were they broadcast live or something?  
"Didn't hear you guys honk all the way down," she explained, lowering her voice, "Dad's team gets really loud every time they win... Mom's upstairs in the office. We were waiting for you to get back to have dinner." Then, with a rather sympathetic look, she proceeded to inquire the inevitable, "So, how bad was it?"  
"They gave us 2 to 1," he grumbled, quite mortified as he made his way up the stairs.  
"Against the Hell's Accountants," Vicki remarked, "I'd say that's not too shabby..."

He found Noin not in her home office, but rather in Ben's room, attempting to give the toddler a diaper change as she continued her phone conversation. Seeing her neck bent in a pretty uncomfortable position to hold the portable to her ear, Milliardo quickly took over at the changing table, so that she may continue her conversation undistracted. He received one of her bright smiles as a thank you, followed by a rather alarmed glance as she took notice of his bruised face and swollen lower lip. 

***

Dinner was just as he had remembered it, if only a rather quick affair, Noin having held her thoughts to their previous frolicking in the pantry. Vicki back to her Harry Potter addiction, and Ben safely tucked in his crib, Noin had promptly whisked her husband off to the bedroom, with the excuse of taking a closer look at those nasty bruises...

"Boy, they roughed you up pretty good," she commented as she observed his face, her fingertips barely touching his cheeks, "Poor Sophie must have had a heart attack..." 

He swallowed hard.  
"You know about Sophie?" he inquired tentatively.  
"Um... does anyone not know that she has the humongouest crush on you?" she replied, as though stating the obvious, "I think even Vicki gives her a hard time with that..." He felt himself blush to a nice crimson colour. Yes, this was an interesting predicament indeed, his wife teasing him over a younger woman having a crush on him, rather than being even remotely jealous...  
"So it doesn't bother you..." he repeated. He had always known that Noin didn't have much patience for possessive people, but this one seemed rather odd nonetheless.  
"Do I feel bad for her? Absolutely," she replied as she applied Polysporin to his swollen lip, "it's pretty obvious that it's not easy on her. Does that make me stop trusting you? Not in the least. I figure I've been able to trust you with far more important things than not to diddle on me, and I've yet to regret it... Otherwise, I probably wouldn't even have made it out of the war alive..."

He realized that she still very much regarded him as the truest friend she would ever have.

"You must have been diving for all the pucks you could get," she then commented briefly, returning the tube to the medicine cabinet.  
"Yeah, right," he growled, feeling once again rather annoyed with his poor performance, "I sucked..."   
She looked over her shoulder with a frown.  
"I don't believe that for one second," she argued. For whatever reason, Milliardo felt an irresistible urge to contradict her, by enumerating just how many times he had screwed things up and made a complete fool of himself since landing into this 'glimpse'. Instead, another revelation surfaced to his lips, even before being fully processed by his brain. Removing himself from under her gaze, he proceeded to turn his back on her and calmly, ever so coldly, drop the bombshell.

"Look, Noin, this is not working..." he began.  
"What is not working?" She asked confusedly, noting how he had started calling her by her maiden name again.  
"Me... here, on Mars. Being a Preventer. I know this is the kind of life that you've always wanted, but... as far as I'm concerned, I'm just getting by."  
"What exactly are you saying, Zechs?" Noin inquired, still rather shell-shocked, " That you want out?"  
"I want out of Mars," he confirmed, "I want out of Preventer. Hell, I want to do something with my life, for a change..." A very disturbing kind of anger kept mounting, and he began feeling quite agitated.

"You... you've got the house with the white picket fence, the kids... the experience of Terraformer, and you've got your very own college of space engineering. Noin, you got to do exactly what you planned to do with your life. You got to live your dreams... Me, I feel like every little thing on this blasted planet has to do with just how great you are, and how much far behind I'm lagging, compared to you. Everybody knows you... Noin-sensei here, Noin-sensei there, Instructor Noin's the greatest... And I'm just some grouchy, underpaid Preventer loser who can't even shoot a puck straight..."  
"What do you mean, some Preventer loser?" she argued back, by then having regained herself, "Zechs, you're the friggin' Chief of all Martian operations, for Pete's sake... I can't honestly think of something more crucial to be... Since when is that not good enough? Since when is that any less than being a college instructor?"

"Since I put my life on hold to let you have all this!" he exploded, his hands trembling beyond control, "Noin, I could have been so much more than this... I could have been responsible for really making a difference in the world, for maintaining peace, not just on some remote and rather insignificant colony, but where things really count. When do I get my damn new skates, huh? Does it ever get to be my turn, or is it always duty of some sort?"

Silence followed for a while, as each processed what had just been said.  
"Alright..." Noin began, steadying her voice, "You got me, I really didn't see this one coming..." Understatement was her middle name, he remarked to himself as he waited for her to give him some semblance of a real reaction.  
"You want to go back to Sanq and get back into politics, am I correct?" she repeated, so infuriatingly calm, "Fair enough... so where does that leave us? Do you..." she stalled, turning her face away from him an inhaling sharply, if only for a brief second, "Is it a separation, that you want?"

He looked back at her. Her face betrayed no anger, as though her previous words had been a mere statement of fact, rather than a life-changing question. Only then did it dawn on him that it was not in his place to make such a decision. He wasn't the one married to her! He wasn't the one who had made a family with her on Mars for the past 10 years, and had worked as a Preventer while she struggled to get Mars College up and running... It wasn't his life he was messing with! He was messing with Zechs Merquise's life, and he had no right to do that. Pretty soon, he'd be sent back to his comfortably predictable, if only lonesome life, and the poor bastard would be wondering why, all of a sudden, his marriage was falling apart. When, really, judging from his past two days, family must have been just about the only thing that kept Zechs Merquise's life interesting... He had no right to destroy that! This wasn't even covered under self-sabotage...

"No!" he protested out loud, wondering how he could backtrack and erase Noin's memory of such a stupid argument, "God, Lu... I don't want a separation. I just... Damn it, I haven't the slightest clue what the hell I want out of life, and that's never been anybody's fault but my own..." For a moment he was utterly confused as to whether he was still trying to put himself in Zechs Merquise's shoes, or whether the concept applied just as truthfully to his own life.  
"All I know is, if I lose you and the kids... then I'm really screwed."

He felt her arms sneak around his waist from behind, and before he could think straight, he had her clasped in a desperately tight embrace, as though if he happened to let go now, his very sanity would be at stake. He couldn't understand why he just couldn't distance himself from the 'glimpse', why the distinction between Zechs Merquise and Milliardo Peacecraft was so blurry at times, that he no longer seemed to be able to tell which was his life, and which was not. That very moment, for one thing, felt as though he was truly, honest-to-God scared of losing everything that was ever important in his life. When he knew full well that Lucrezia Noin wasn't his to begin with... 

"Look... I'm just being a moron," he apologized dryly, still reluctant to let go just yet. She looked up from his embrace, eyes mysteriously red, though no other evidence of tears existed,  
"No, I think I deserve the weenie award this time," she joked as she offered a peace-making smile, "All these years, and I never once realized that you had come back to Mars just for me... Just to satisfy my selfish need to create something."  
He laughed. Noin didn't have a selfish bone in her if they looked for it with X-rays...

"And look what you did create, in the end," he argued back, frustrated with her blaming herself for his lack of direction. Somehow, the skyline of Mars's main settlement with the brightly lit college campus beckoning from afar, the little eight-year-old girl reading downstairs, and the baby sleeping just across the hallway seemed to him like more than he could ever hope to accomplish in an entire lifetime in Sanq.  
"We did this... not me," she corrected, "and I want you to have no doubt in your mind that I value your happiness just as much as my own... Whatever you figure out that it is. Look, the college is settled, and it's not like it'll all go to the dogs if I take a sabbatical and we go back to Sanq for a while... The kids already have friends and family there, too, so I'm sure it'll be fine. It's not like we'd be moving to Moose Jaw, or Katmandu or anything... heck, it can't get more 'boonies' than Mars..."

He couldn't resist a smile at her sudden enthusiasm.  
"We could travel, you could do diplomatic work again, go back to school, you name it..." oh, she was really on a roll now.. "Take up anything that strikes your fancy! Wanna join the circus? I hear Trowa still has all the right contacts. Take up photography? My mom's intern just went back to school, and she'll need a new apprentice in the spring. Cooking school? Gaelic language and literature? Architecture? Underwater basket weaving?"

He watched her waltz around the room, her faith in their future soon rubbing off on him.  
"Underwater basket weaving, huh?" he repeated with an amused chuckle.  
"Anything! Anything at all that makes you happy. Look, Zechs, I want to be there for you, just as you've always been there for me..."

He found her last statement painfully ironic, as it became clear to him that he had been the first to desert her, 10 years earlier. And there he was now, seeing for the first time all that he had missed out on, all that he had walked away from when he decided to say no instead of yes. Here he was, on Mars, with her and the family they would have created together... had he had the guts to be there for her when it really mattered.

He took her hands in his, effectively stopping her from moving away from him.  
"Why would you ever want to put up with me, Lu?" he asked, determined to find out exactly how late was too late, "I mean, it's pretty safe to say that I'm impossible to live with..."  
"I think it's pretty safe to say that you can be... uh... interesting to deal with," she countered, "and that I love you nonetheless, just the way you are... and that I wouldn't change a single thing about you... Although you can be a rather stubborn bugger, and God knows you drive me up the freaking wall at times..." she looked up, grinning in utter mischief at his bemused expression.  
"But, like I said, I love you, and I choose us, and that's pretty much all there is to it... Plus you put up with me and my weirdness, so there... we're even. Overall, that makes you pretty much impossible to live without, at least in my book..." 

He figured that, because she had managed to get through all that with a straight face, it was a pretty good sign that she actually meant at least some of it. Bracing himself and squashing the negative voice in his head that kept berating him, Milliardo smiled, for the first time in years genuinely care-free. And made the conscious decision, for once in his life, to do something that was completely pointless, other than being beautifully, recklessly true to himself. He leaned over, and kissed the living daylights out of Lucrezia Noin.

_Author's Note: Ok, guys... a big apology is in order here, for making you wait so long for an update. I know I have a track record up to Wazoo, with my slowpoke writing and stalling of fic series. I'm really trying to get this one finished in reasonable timelines, and I totally appreciate your patience up until here. Goes to show bugging me does motivate me, in some weird and twisted way..._

_Also (heh... sheepish grin) I hope I haven't offended anyone with my goofy portrayal of the Hell's Accountants hockey team. Though a different kind of geek myself, I fully embrace my own geekiness, and wouldn't dream of making fun of anybody else's. As far as I'm concerned, accountants are actually pretty cool people... Tax time would be a major headache without them, for one thing! Also, cheers to all those readers who happen to live in Moose Jaw or Katmandu. I didn't want to pick on you, I just liked the sound of those two really cool names. (shrugs... told ya I was weird)_ _Couldn't help that one snippet of patriotic gloating, though, especially in light of the Olympics... I hope it didn't bother anyone too much (Sakic for ever!!!)_

_Also, if you're interested in seeing my pathetic image editing (mucking) skills at work, you can go to this site, and take a peek at how I managed to butcher the movie's original billboard-thingy:_

http://www26.brinkster.com/amigirl/images/ZMFamilyMan.jpg

_Last but not least, I do not own them. I just like messing with them, for nothing but my own twisted enjoyment. Lawyers-be-gone._


	6. All in a Day's Work

_Waaaaahhh!!! Sorry about the obscenely long wait, people! I appreciate every little bit of your patience, if any of you are still reading this thing... I'm not making any promises, but I'd like to wrap this up within this Christmas season... Ugly database project permitting... eugh... Anyway, Milli-boy gets a taste of Zechs Merquise's work environment, and even gets his five minutes of fame, to boot! Enjoy..._

Chapter 6: All in a Day's Work... Half, Actually 

The clock read 9:00 am, and a rather misplaced Milliardo Peacecraft poked around uncomfortably in the somewhat understated office that was supposed to belong to Captain Zechs Merquise, Chief of the Martian Preventers chapter. Not a leather chair, not a flat-screen monitor, not even his own personal printer, if one didn't count the painfully slow, ridiculously obsolete colour bubblejet clunker sitting (or rather, hiding in shame) underneath the computer desk. Just where he would have normally stretched his legs, might he add. 

He decided that he would talk to Relena immediately upon his return to lobby for a budget increase for the Martian headquarters. He tsked a bit at the clutter on the desk, plopped down on the IKEA swivel chair, and dove right into the paperwork. It came to him as a bit of a surprise that a relatively "lowly" Preventer agent from Mars would have as many administrative headaches as a globe-trotting diplomat. In fact, he was ready to concede within the first ten minutes that maybe, just maybe, he had been underestimating Zechs Merquise's career choice.

Looking through the various files, he immediately got the sense that, while violent crime was not exactly rampant, Mars appeared to be a haven for the pot-growing business, much to the Preventers' consternation. It made total sense to him, as he remembered from his Terraforming days that, for the first year or so, the new settlement had to be developed entirely underground. Now that the inhabited core was completely above ground, weather-controlled, with breathable air and relatively Earth-like temperatures, there was an entire city sitting just underneath the surface, virtually unused. That, and plenty of people who had been around long enough to be familiar with the network of passageways and chambers just waiting to be exploited for profitable, if only not entirely legal, ventures. It was actually quite entertaining to read through the reports of the latest "greenhouse" busts, since the sheer creativity and ingenuity involved in most of those so-called projects was impressive to say the least. 

After all, Mars did have the highest concentration of engineers and otherwise technically inclined people in all of the ESUN... A Geek Planet, as Duo Maxwell was so fond of saying just to bug Noin. And, had he not spent the past couple of days on it, he might as well have agreed. In truth, he had to admit that, as different as Mars was from Sanq, he was oddly fascinated with it. He looked outside to the bright sky, all remains of the blood-red, deadly atmosphere long gone. Instead, the sun was shining, making the snow-laced trees of Killarney Park glitter, much like in those winter wonderland Christmas cards that he received every year in the mail from his dentist, his lawyer, the Earl and Duchess Van Der Schnobb (or something dreadfully similar to that), and goodness knows whoever else. 

He found it rather refreshing to be in a city where the skyscrapers could be counted on his fingertips, organic produce was the hottest export, and women could go jogging after dark and have nothing to fear other than, maybe, the neighbourhood skunk out on the prowl (apparently, Noin did not find it very funny at all since the family cat got sprayed...). Plus, not having to wear a suit and tie every day had its definite advantages, as he was beginning to rediscover. After years of absurdly impractical, if only very dashing, OZ uniforms, the more utilitarian Preventer uniforms had been a welcome change, at least until he had resumed his high-profile position as Relena's associate.

He jumped a little as the phone rang, unsure of whether he should be answering it.  
"Suck it up, Peacecraft," he steeled himself, and resolutely picked up the receiver, hell-bent on keeping up the charade.  
"Uh... Captain Merquise, we've got a situation here," he recognized the young Preventer by the name of Adrian, still composed if only decidedly uncomfortable.  
"What can I do for you, Agent Neufeld?" he inquired calmly, as the adrenaline mounted slowly but surely.  
"I think you better get down here, sir," Adrian replied, as a female scream, followed by a string of curses, was heard in the background. He could hear Adrian's voice fumbling as he instructed someone to "Breathe, just...errr, breathe, ok?"

Upon inquiring about the location, Milliardo quickly learned that:   
a) it was not uncommon for the Preventers to cover both fire-fighting and paramedic duties, especially over the major holidays when both departments were critically understaffed, and  
b) Adrian was currently about 10-12 blocks down the street, right in front of the main mall entrance, on paramedic duty. He had no way out of the traffic-jammed street, since a large department store delivery truck had skidded on the icy road and collided with a bus, and both were now stuck at a rather weird angle, effectively blocking all lanes.   
c) While nobody on the bus or the truck was injured, he had a labouring woman in his ambulance, who had been Boxing-Day shopping until her waters broke. He was currently being helped by a nursing student visiting from Earth, who just happened to be shopping in the same store when it all happened.

Now his heart was really thumping... He hastily threw on his coat and made a mad dash towards the scene, all thoughts of his complete lack of experience in that field shoved aside by the urgency of the situation. Like it or not, Milliardo Peacecraft was still very much an adrenaline junkie. 

He arrived on the scene, huffing and puffing from the race, only to be literally assaulted by a camera crew from the local TV station, who happened to own office space in the building across the street. He unceremoniously shoved the reporters aside, yelling for them to let the Preventers do their jobs, and made his way towards the ambulance. It was then that the patient let out another bellow, again cursing like a sailor and whacking poor Adrian upside the head as she proceeded to growl, "What the hell do you think I'm doing? I AM breathing! Now, how about some goddamn Demerol?!"

Adrian looked rather relieved as Milliardo climbed in and attempted to reassure the lady by giving her his credentials.  
"I don't care if you're the Freaking Pope, I want my Demerol," the patient snapped, "I was supposed to have this kid with an epidural, and this jackass, here, keeps telling me that he can't give me anything, not a single thing, for the pain!" The angry outburst soon turned into a frightened wail as another contraction began. Milliardo stared at the now frail-looking woman for a brief second, completely clueless as to how to proceed, just as Adrian defended himself, waving about a vial of morphine, rambling on about how he obviously could not give her that because it was bad for the baby, and how the closest thing to pain relief that was on hand was some aspirin, which the woman happened to be allergic to.

"Hold her hand," Milliardo instructed his subordinate, recalling how that always seemed to help in movies. He then could not think of anything better than to lean over the patient and stroke her hair, telling her that she was going to be alright, and asking her what she was going to name the baby. For his part, Adrian just sat and rolled his eyes, dutifully holding the woman's hand, expecting the next outburst of verbal abuse any time now. Instead, he was quite surprised to see the patient soften up, almost smiling through the pain, as she proceeded to list out all the possibilities, and ask Milliardo for his own opinion of whether he preferred Angelica or Angelina.

Yet Milliardo knew that he could not keep her relaxed and chit-chatting about baby names for much longer. Even without having any specific knowledge of pregnancy and childbirth, he had been timing the contractions, and knew that they were definitely growing closer together, each one longer and more intense than the previous. Soon, he would have to actually do something other than verbal reassurance. He craned his neck outside the ambulance to see how much longer it would be before the accident was cleared, and the road to the hospital was once again open. He could see officer Gary Sorensen, Adrian's partner, gesticulating madly as a large group of people pushed and shoved in an effort to make the bus budge. Not a chance in hell, he decided, breaking into a cold sweat. He would have to deliver the baby himself.

"Captain, I feel like I've gotta push," the dreaded words brought him back to reality with a vengeance.  
"Now?" he only managed to squeak, just as Adrian suggested that he check whether she was indeed dilated enough to do so safely. He paled, audibly gulping before he proceeded to move over to the patient's feet. Oh, he really wasn't the right person for the job, he thought as he sweated profusely, white-knuckled hands gripping his knees for dear life.

"Hold on there, brother," a young female voice rang behind his shoulders, and he turned around to see none other than Noin's little step-sister, Elisa, with Mariemaya in tow, both young women looking quite disheveled as they ran with their brimming shopping bags.  
"Lise? What are you doing here?" Milliardo fretted, as he saw the girl climb into the ambulance and shove him out of the way.  
"Nursing student, remember?" she grinned as she proceeded to snap on the latex gloves and examine the patient, "10 centimeters and fully effaced, I'd say you're ready to rock, girl!"  
"Oh, happiness and joy," the patient commented sarcastically, while panting through a particularly nasty contraction, "Where the hell were you? You said you'd only be a couple of minutes!"

By then, Milliardo was so confused that he barely even noticed a rather pale Mariemaya squeezing in past him, reaching into a shopping bag, and lighting up a stick of incense. She then passed Adrian a plastic cup filled with ice chips, and a terry facecloth, and wiggled herself towards the driver's seat to put in a CD. As the relaxing new-age music began to play, she whispered something about visualizing a "happy place", then began chanting along as she rubbed lavender-scented massage oil onto the lady's temples. Soon, everybody else on board, including the labouring patient, had joined in the same repetitive melody. Milliardo felt more than a little silly as his deep baritone voice sounded out syllables that made no sense whatsoever, but he had to admit it really seemed to bring the woman relief, for some bizarre reason. Strangely, he himself wasn't feeling quite as nervous, even as Elisa motioned for him to join her at the patient's feet, then instructed her to start pushing with all her might. Following Mariemaya's lead, everyone in the ambulance began chanting louder, as if to cheer the mother and baby in their efforts.

Milliardo felt a wave of dizziness as the baby's head began to crown and, had he not been sitting down, he knew his legs would have very likely given way. Elisa, for her part, offered an excited ear-to-ear grin, instructing for another big push.  
"You know," she began in a rather proud tone, then gestured towards Milliardo, "this guy here is a pro at this kind of stuff," just as Milliardo's eyes widened to the size of saucers.  
"Last year," she continued, "he delivered my nephew in the back of an ambulance, just like this one."  
"No kidding!" the patient exclaimed while groaning through the effort. For his part, Adrian nodded his assent in silence.  
"Yeah, like, my sister teaches at the college, right?" Elisa rambled on, "Well, that day she was supposed to give a midterm, except she woke up, and she had the darndest backache, exactly like you."  
"So... pant, puff... grrrrr... did she still go in to work?"  
"Yup. And she started having contractions, too, right in the middle of the exam. So you'd figure she'd, like, call it off and go to the hospital, right? That would make sense, but... Nooo, soldier-girl, she was in the military, you know... she's tough! She thinks that rescheduling and coming up with a whole new set of test questions would be a total pain in the butt, and that her students wouldn't be too happy with her, either, so she decides to suck it up and wait until the end of class. Besides, she figures it took her about 10 hours to get going for her first kid... Vicky, my niece, she's such a cutie... so she's like, 'Nah... oodles of time...' Right, Zechs?"

"Oh, dumb... huff, puff... auggggghhh.... What was she thinking?"  
"That's what I said, too. Except, by the end of class she was really hurting. So she calls up an ambulance, 'cuz she was actually gonna drive herself an' all, if a student hadn't happened to notice her all pale, hunched over the desk and breathing Lamaze-style, and put two and two together. Anyway, Zechs is on paramedic duty that day, and he's doing rounds with Adrian, la-la-la, everything's cool, just as they hear the radio call go out for a bus to go to the Mars College campus to pick up a woman in labour. Well, let me tell you... he freaked!"  
"Oh, yeah," Adrian added emphatically, "Ma'am, I'm lucky to be alive! We were just casually cruising down Grafton, and all of a sudden he goes 'WHAT?!!' slams on the brakes, and pulls a U-turn, right as a big-ass truck was coming in on the other lane... Anyway, the guy barely misses slamming into us by inches, he honks, gives us the one-fingered salute, the whole works, and we're like, full sirens on, blasting towards the college..."

By then Milliardo was full-on blushing crimson, having forever compromised his perfect record of cool-as-a-cucumber, almost Vulcan-like composure in the face of highly stressful situations. Oh, well, he sighed inwardly, even the unflappable Heero Yuy melted into a big puddle of goo when it came to fatherhood. At least his battlefield record was still intact...

"Ok, sweetie, one more push, that's it, I promise," Elisa interrupted, then resumed the chattering, "So they get there, right? And by then Lucy, my sister... name's Lucrezia, but we call her Lucy, or Lu, she's pacing around in the freezing cold, leaning on her student and chanting weird stuff at every contraction, and practically ready to pop any second. Her student's terrified, poor guy, and Zechs starts yelling at him for not having her sitting down inside where it's nice and warm, and of course he starts yelling back to defend himself, and she's like, 'Uh... hello... some help here?'"  
"Aw, man... hiss, grrrr... that's gotta suck... aurrrrrrrrrggggh!"  
"Oh, you bet it sucks. Betcha if there's ever a third kid, she won't be dilly-dallying around before getting herself to the hospital... So anyway, they get her settled in the ambulance, and figure that there is no time to make it to the hospital, because this kid wants out right now..."  
"God, I can so... hmmmmphfff... relate to that..."  
"Ok, this is it... Gimme one last big push..."  
"Hey, didn't you say that a while ago? Huff, wheeze... Alright, here goes... Nnnnnyyyaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghh!"

Outside the ambulance, the surrounding crowd broke into a loud cheer and round of applause as Captain Zechs Merquise and his sister-in-law, eighteen-year-old nursing student Elisa Noin, made their appearance, grinning ear-to-ear and holding a wailing pink bundle, whom they introduced as Miss Angelina Johnson.   
"Hey, cool! Like the Quidditch player," a child's voice rang out amidst the crowd. Camera flashes blasted left, right, and centre, just as microphones were shoved right in their faces, each reporter wanting the privilege of the first recounting of such a heroic act.

"Uh... I really didn't do a whole lot, other than catch the baby," Milliardo stated calmly, if only a bit sheepishly. For all answer, a group of young women in the crowd whooped and whistled even more loudly, some even going as far as grabbing lingerie from their shopping bags and tossing it in the air, professing their undying love for the platinum-blonde, devilishly sexy Preventers Captain.   
"Ooookay then..." Elisa quipped, "man, that's just freaky..."

"It was Miss Noin, here, who kept the patient focused and in high spirits the whole time..." Milliardo added for the camera.  
"And my best pal Mariemaya Khushrenada, who worked some pretty awesome aromatherapy magic," Elisa was quick to add, as she proceeded to drag the other blushing eighteen-year-old redhead into the spotlight. From inside the ambulance, a shrill holler was heard,   
"Hey! What about me? I worked my ass off too, you know!"

Just as Adrian wheeled a beaming Mrs. Johnson into full view, and Milliardo settled the newborn baby girl into her mother's arms, Elisa eeped as a red, lacy bra hit her full in the face, then commented to her crimson-faced brother-in-law,  
"Good grief, Zechs... You're like a freakin' rock star on this planet..."  
Then, glancing down at her boots, "Eeeurgh, is that underwear? Gross!"

***************************

He had to literally squeeze himself into his office and lock the door to escape the crowd of rabid fan-girls and blood-sucking reporters who insisted on ignoring mother, child, and anybody else who had a hand in helping the delivery, in favour of His Royal Hotness. He now knew for a fact that he had completely underestimated Zechs Merquise's job. In comparison, he felt rather like an overpaid, posh diplomat sissy, who had completely lost touch with what it's like to affect people's lives on a daily basis. And now, his stint as Captain Merquise, Preventer-firefighter-paramedic extraordinaire, had re-ignited just that very basic, undeniable need for action and adrenaline that he was oh-so-very familiar with in his combat days. 

Except, the whole situation unfolding behind his office door was beginning to feel decidedly silly, if not totally surreal. Used as he might be to basking in the limelight, he could only wish for one thing at the moment: normalcy. That, and a fast mobile suit... and maybe some food, as it turned out to be lunch-time...

Just then, his cell phone rang. Groaning and barely resisting the urge to bang his head against the monitor, Milliardo picked up, ready to yell at whoever was arrogant enough to use his private line to bug him. Instead,  
"Hey, Z. Forgot your lunch bag again," Noin's cheery voice greeted from the other end. He sighed relief, and began to explain that he was in the middle of a rather sticky situation.  
"Lemme guess," she suggested, "you're making the 6 o'clock news again..."  
"Yup... I take it you're not surprised..."  
"Downright shocked and appalled... Not! So who'd you save this time?" she inquired playfully.  
"Oh, just... helped a lady in labour... Nothing much... your sister was the real hero, actually..." he replied tiredly.  
"But instead, they're bugging you..." Noin added sympathetically, then, "Come on, I'll be there in 5 to pick you up, and we'll go have lunch at our secret spot!"  
"Luce, sounds lovely, but have you seen the traffic around here? Honestly, I don't think..."  
"What traffic? I'm taking the 'Geese for a spin before demo-ing it out to the board... can you believe they want to call my new class PMS101? I mean, hello? Who in their right mind would want to sign up for that? I suggested PAMS, as in Peaceful Applications of Mobile Suits, but... oh, well... Meet you on the rooftop in 5?"  
"It's a date," Milliardo grinned, suddenly feeling giddy as a schoolboy. 

He grabbed his coat, sneaked out onto his balcony, and made a dash for the utility staircase all the way up to the top of the building. Feeling the butterflies in his stomach, which he could not quite tell if due to hunger, excitement, his latest silly crush on Zechs Merquise's wife, or a mix of all three, he stood tall, staring into the sun as the familiar silhouette of the Tallgeese appeared, doing pirouettes and other silly aerobatics as it drew nearer.


	7. A Rose by Any Other Name

Chapter 7: A Rose by Any Other Name 

Milliardo soon found out that the 'secret spot' Noin had referred to was a remote weather control station perched on top of a steep cliff, staring straight into the water pounding below. The style and wear of the building was such that, had he not known that he was on Mars, he would have for sure mistaken it for one of the many wind-and-saltwater-battered lighthouses that littered the coast of Ireland, Maine, or the Maritime provinces of Canada. 

After all, he reasoned, it wasn't a mere coincidence that Mars ended up looking a lot like a Celtic landscape, since a large portion of the original Terraforming contingent had shipped out of Newfoundland and Ireland, especially counties Kerry and Galway. That also explained names such as Killarney Park, Grafton Street (as in Dublin's historical downtown core), Carrickfergus Mall and, last but not least, Skellig Point, which he was presently staring down at from the dome at the top of the lighthouse.

He sat beside Noin in complete silence, engrossed in the majestic view, and savouring a massive turkey club sandwich, gooey cranberry sauce threatening to squish out from either side.  
"Pretty amazing, huh?" Noin commented softly, between two gulps of steaming apple cider from her travel mug, "We come here all the time, and yet...". He nodded, not taking his eyes off the rugged, snow-covered coastline.  
"It's like seeing it for the first time," he muttered in awe. This was definitely not the Mars he remembered and had so passionately hated during his Terraforming days!

Just as he sank his teeth into his sandwich, a glob of cranberry sauce fell and landed straight onto his lap. He did not notice until he heard a light chuckle from Noin.  
"Zechs, you're making a mess..."  
"Wha..? Aw, bugger," he cursed, with his mouth full. That sent Noin into a full-fledged fit of laughter, which he stubbornly scowled at.  
"Hard to believe I married a prince," she joked in between giggles at his less-than-perfect sandwich-eating manners, then handed him a paper napkin, which he proceeded to rub furiously against his pant leg. His scowl grew only fiercer as he realized that he was actually making the stain worse.

"Here, let me see that," Noin intervened after observing him for a little while. With the smug, amused smile of someone who knows a few more tricks than he, she dipped the napkin into some water, to blot away at the stain on his upper thigh. 

Unfortunately, and much to Milliardo's embarrassment, her touch only succeeded in making him twitch so suddenly that the cup was knocked right out of her hand. She yelped in surprise as a splash of icy-cold water landed all over the front of her white blouse. 

"Sorry," he mumbled, feeling utterly mortified as she reached for another wad of napkins to towel off the spill.   
The 'twitchy leg' thing hadn't happened to him since he had been a teenager. And even then, he remembered, it was only when a certain raven-haired, indigo-eyed cadet happened to brush against him in the tight confines of a cockpit. For all he knew, he might as well have permanent damage to his knees, with all the times he had whacked them in those very circumstances. 

"Are you ok?" Noin inquired, scrunching up her brow with curiosity, "You're awfully jumpy today..."   
As she said that, she inched even closer than she already was, so much that he could not help a peek at the now very see-through blouse. He blushed hard at the sight of amber skin covered in goose bumps, the lacy white bra conspiring against him into a repeat of the night before. Which, for the record, he had enjoyed immensely, more so than with any other woman he could remember having known since her, but chemistry was hardly the problem. The drawback had been waking up in the morning with the worst feelings of guilt and worthlessness that he had experienced in... well, just about since the whole Libra incident. 

She was, after all, still married to someone other than him... Not that he wouldn't do it all over again, if she pressed him hard enough... He had long come to the realization that he had no willpower whatsoever when it came to shutting Noin out of his life. He could break up with her, make her think that he was the biggest jerk to ever walk the Earth, even move to a different planet and tell himself ad nauseam that she was better off without him, but he just could not get her out of his system. No more, at least, than he could stick his own elbow in his ear. Experience had proven time and again that she had the power to turn him from Lightning Count to Spineless Wimp in three seconds flat. Even her absence had affected his life more than he would ever care to admit... 

He felt the urge to jump again as he registered an icy-cold hand settle on the back of his neck and give a gentle, yet decisive squeeze at his tense muscles.  
"That is one serious knot you have," he heard Noin state matter-of-factly, just as she stood up and slid herself behind the bench that they had been sitting on, then started kneading away at his shoulders. For a second, his back went even more rigid, if at all possible, until she gently pushed his head down, so that his chin touched against his chest. She then began working one vertebra at a time, starting from the base of his skull, and slowly making her way down, until the painful tension subsided under her touch. 

Within the first two minutes, Milliardo was no longer aware of any conscious thought, other than the tingling sensation travelling up and down his spine. He was soon sitting hunched over his legs, with his forehead resting on his knees, and his eyes closed, feeling nothing but utter relaxation. He did not immediately register the sighs of pleasure that escaped his lips as Noin applied pressure to his lower back. Nor did he feel her fidgeting behind him until she had swung her legs over the backrest, and slid herself behind him, her own torso relaxing against his back, and her arms encircling him. He knew nothing of right or wrong, faithful or adulterous, love or deception... Zechs or Milliardo. He only knew that her closeness felt comfortable, like coming home after a long, hellish business trip. No matter how much he ran from it, Lucrezia Noin always did, and always would feel like home to him.

"Zechs..." she called to him after an indefinite amount of time. His only reply came in the form of a low humming sound as his hands settled on hers, effectively preventing her from letting go of the embrace. She shifted and fidgeted and wiggled some more, until her lips were lightly grazing his ear lobe.  
"Zechs..." she then repeated in a low, sultry tone, "Drop your pants."

"I beg your pardon?!" Milliardo managed to squeak, at least a couple of octaves above his normal timbre, as he frantically shuffled off the bench, nearly landing on his butt. Noin's eyes grew wide with surprise and amusement at his dismayed expression, and for a moment she fought to keep a straight face before breaking down into a fit of laughter.  
"The pants," she managed to gasp, "I can't clean the stain unless you take them off..."  
"Oh..." he muttered, all of a sudden feeling rather foolish, if only slightly disappointed, "I thought for a second you were... ahem...Never mind."  
"Propositioning you?" she suggested, arching an eyebrow in mock-disapproval after she regained her composure. He felt a heat wave flush his cheeks.  
"Just forget it, ok?" he snapped, and gave a cough as though wanting to drop the subject entirely.

"What if I were?" Noin added matter-of-factly after a moment of silence, "What if I am... right now?"  
"You're a tease, you know that?" Milliardo groaned in exasperation, plopping back on the bench.  
"Oh, I'm a total smart-ass," she confirmed wholeheartedly, "But my indecent proposal still stands. Want to take me up on it?" She offered a peace-making smile, yet waited for his reaction before stepping any closer.  
"Now?" he repeated with a frown, the whole idea sounding totally impractical, if only rather intriguing.  
"No time like the present," she replied, "especially since we have a full house again tonight, with my family back from their little tour of the islands..."  
"But... here? I know it's in the middle of nowhere, but it's still a public place..."  
"Zechs... we locked the door, and parked a big-ass Gundam prototype outside. I'm thinking we'd get more privacy here than we do at home, with two kids on a season-long sugar high, a cat, and a busload of visiting relatives running around..."  
"Good point, but... what about surveillance cameras? Call me a prude, but I don't really want to end up all over the Internet... or worse, the Preventers' Intranet..."  
"All gone, remember? When we built the weather station on Inis-Meain, and we were short a shipment, and we had to rip the equipment out of this one, since it was going to be shut down anyway..." Noin recountered with a mischievous grin as she stepped closer, "Hey, there is method to my madness, after all..."  
  
Seeing how all his perfectly sound, sensible arguments were being refuted one by one, and how Noin seemed quite determined to have her way with him, Milliardo resolved to make one last attempt at keeping an honourable conduct. If this one fell on deaf ears too, then it would be ok to succumb...  
"Luce... wait," he spoke low as he stopped her hands from sneaking around his waist, "I keep trying to tell you, I'm not who you think I am..."

She held his gaze without faltering, her quiet half-smile refusing to give way to his seriousness.  
"And I keep trying to tell you, Milliardo Peacecraft," she declared with a touch of impatience in her voice, "that if it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck!"  
He cocked his brow at the unusual metaphor, yet understanding exactly what she meant by her choice of name.  
"Ok, I suppose Shakespeare put it a bit more elegantly when he said that a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet," Noin shrugged, then paused for a moment, looking for the right words.

"What I mean is, I love you for who you are, not which name you choose to go by, or which life choices you made..." she then added emphatically, "So quit playing the Now-I'm-Zechs-Now-I'm-Milliardo game with me, because it doesn't work. You already know I love you as both, anyway..." 

He noticed how she didn't say, "I love them both", proof that, to her, they had always been one and the same. His head began spinning with all the bizarre, confusing events of the past two days. First, living his life convinced that he had killed his Zechs Merquise persona when he had chosen to go back to Sanq. Then, being tossed into this alternate universe of sorts, and finding out that Zechs Merquise was indeed alive and well, living on Mars with his high-school sweetheart and two wonderful kids. Then, adapting to living Zechs Merquise's life, and becoming acutely aware of how different it was from his own life in Sanq as Milliardo Peacecraft. And now, coming full-circle, and realizing that there is no such thing as a Zechs Merquise, or a Milliardo Peacecraft, at least not as separate entities. In this life he may go by a different name than he did back in Sanq, but none of the people who cared about him seemed to care either way. Not Noin, not his kids, not his sister and close friends. 

"I'm sorry," he heard Noin apologize just as his brain finished processing that very epiphany, "I didn't mean to get all bossy and patronizing and such... But it's just so frustrating..."  
This time, he made the first move, and a bold one at that. He placed his hands around her and, without the slightest warning, proceeded to dip her as he would in a passionate tango. Then, just as she yelped and started to laugh, he stifled her giggles with an equally passionate kiss.   
"No time like the present, you said," he spoke low and sensuously, setting to work on the buttons on her still damp blouse.  
"Oh, good... you're taking up my offer," Noin piped back, going straight for his belt.  
"Don't mind if I do... You're positive there are no surveillance cameras, right?"  
"Argggh... must I always repeat myself?"  
"Just bugging you..." 

********************** 

Captain Merquise did not show his face around the office for the rest of the day. He did rush the Tallgeese back to Mars College, barely in time for his wife to make her board meeting without raising any suspicions as to her unusually long lunch break. He could not help a mischievous grin as she turned and dashed out of the hangar, the back of her business suit and blouse visibly rumpled. On the other hand, there hadn't been any time to do anything about his cranberry sauce stain, either, which made them even. 

He took a walk around the college's long row of hangars, poking and prodding under the hatch of every single mobile suit he saw. He figured Mars College must have a skyrocketing budget to afford all those toys. Either that, or some of the best budding mobile suit engineers, who routinely put stuff like that together out of scrap metal as part of their term projects. 

He noticed how most suits had been retrofitted with tools for use in Terraforming applications, such as shovel arms and crop-dusting siphons. He even saw a couple of gundanium suits that would have looked just about identical to the Heavyarms and the Sandrock, had they not sported a bulldozer head and a seed-launching mechanism instead of the heavy artillery and two swinging scimitars that characterized the original Gundams. He snickered for a moment, wondering how Maxwell or Chang, or his brother-in-law, for that matter, would have reacted if approached by one of Noin's graduating students who wanted to do a remake of their Gundams, and turn them into lean, mean field-fertilizing machines... 

His jaw literally dropped as he came to the last hangar, and saw that it was filled exclusively with vintage, original-design suits, just as OZ and the colonies had used in the war. Leos, Aries's, a mint-condition Wing Zero, and a couple of versions of the Tallgeese. Even Noin's "old faithful", her beloved white Taurus, was there. He couldn't help but noticing how each and every one of those suits bore the Preventers insignia somewhere on its body. A smile of dawning understanding spread all over his face.  
"So that's where the Preventers budget ends up," he smirked, suddenly not minding at all the IKEA furniture and less-than-state-of-the-art computer equipment, "I should think as Captain, it would be my duty to periodically test-drive the equipment..." And with that, he made a dash up the metal stairs, headed straight for Wing Zero.  
"That Yuy git never let me take it for a spin, even now that we're family..." 

********************

As the sun went down that day, he was sitting on the benches of the local ice arena, a steaming cup of apple cider in one hand, while the other rested on his wife's knee. The two proud parents, and their squirming one-year-old, watched in rapture as a swarm of eight-year-old sugarplum fairies twirled and practiced double-axles , the notes of the Nutcracker playing in the background.

As the practice session ended, his heart literally melted when Victoria Merquise practically flew to him, skates and all, and flung her arms around his neck.  
"Daddy, you're back," she whispered excitedly in his ear, as though sharing a huge secret.  
"I am, pumpkin," he replied, returning the hug, "I'm home."

He never even noticed the bright orange tow-truck, nor the young African-American fellow behind the wheel, as they all huddled together and exited onto the parking lot...

(to be continued...)


	8. What He Could Not Leave Behind

Chapter 8: What He Could Not Leave Behind  
  
His sleep was usually very light. He figured it was most likely a residual of his military training and the dangerous times that had shaped his youth. Even now, as a man in his early thirties, the slightest noise or change in the environment would elicit a startle into wakefulness. Usually, his hand would still dart under the bed, where he had kept his gun as a young officer of OZ. Never mind that the gun had been replaced with a handful of dust bunnies ever since the war had ended. A textbook case of pavlovian reaction, this response was still hard to die.  
  
That night, it was a set of flickering orange lights outside his window that triggered it. Milliardo Peacecraft squinted in the darkness of the bedroom, and felt his heart rate begin to calm down as he recognized the familiar surroundings. He groggily glanced at the alarm clock sitting on his bedside table. 2:00 AM.   
  
He felt Noin stir and mutter something in her sleep, then settle down again in peaceful dreams. She gave the customary forceful tug on the blankets that left half his body exposed, and proceeded to cocoon herself in.  
  
"Blanket hog..." Milliardo protested half-heartedly, and burrowed closer to align himself with his wife's body and partake in the stolen warmth. He was about to drift off to sleep once again, comfortably settled with her in the cocoon of quilts, when the orange beam lit up the bedroom once again. One second, then it subsided. It flashed two more times before realization began to dawn on Milliardo, and he got up to either confirm or deny the eerie feeling in the pit of his stomach.  
  
Down by the side of the road, right in front of his driveway, was a bright orange tow truck, lights aglow in the otherwise motionless neighbourhood. It was time to end the glimpse and go home.   
  
It should have been a comforting thought; after all hadn't he spent the first two days of his experience feeling like he was the butt of some higher entity's practical joke? Hadn't he wished, over and over again, to be back to normalcy, to the predictability of his life in Sanq? Yes, he conceded, but that was before everything the glimpse had shown him. And now that same higher entity wanted to send him back home, business as usual, as if nothing had ever happened. Never even consulting him in the first place as to where he would rather be...  
  
He trudged downstairs as noiselessly as he could manage, anger mounting with each step, and hastily threw on a heavy coat and gloves, still in his pajamas and slippers.  
  
The young man at the wheel did not seem surprised at all to see him come out of the house in less than perfect traveling attire. He rolled down the window and gave him a lopsided grin instead.  
  
"Dude! Told ya I'd come back for you once you learned what you were here to learn," he greeted.   
  
For his part, Milliardo stood his ground calmly, yet there was no mistaking his determination. It was written all over his face and stance.  
  
"I'm not going back to Sanq," he stated flatly, as if leaving no room for debate, "I already am home. Thank you for your concern."  
  
"Oh, brother... Here we go again," the young man groaned, bracing himself for another bout of Peacecraft stubbornness,   
  
"Dude... that's not up for discussion. You knew the deal all along. You get sent here, you learn your lesson, you get sent back home..."  
  
Seeing as his charge gave no indication that he was any more willing to cooperate, he reached for the truck's two-way radio, switched on the channel, and sent out his call for backup,  
  
"T, you better get down here... This guy's hell-bent on staying and, quite frankly, I've put up with him long enough as it is..."  
  
"Perhaps you'd like to get the chief of the Preventers arrested?" Milliardo inquired matter-of –factly, yet with a hefty dose of sarcasm, "Hmm, let me see... for refusing to leave his house and desert his family, not to mention resisting an... Oh, right... you're not an officer. You're a tow truck driver...". Yet the smugness was quickly wiped off his face as he witnessed, for the second time in the space of three days, as the young man's facial features morphed into the ghost of Treize Khushrenada.  
  
"I suppose it's only fair that we meet again, since I sent you here," Treize announced, turning towards Milliardo. For his part, Milliardo could not help but scrunch up his brow in disbelief at seeing his aristocratic, always elegant mentor now dressed for the occasion in a blue mechanic's jumpsuit.  
  
"Well?" Treize prompted, "I take it you liked what you saw, if you're so reluctant to leave. That's exactly what I was aiming for, by the way. And no, it's not because I'm a sadistic bastard, though right now you might be inclined to feel that way."  
  
"How perceptive..." Milliardo muttered under his breath.  
  
"I understand your anger, believe me. This," Treize made a sweeping gesture with his hand, "feels real. The air you breathe, the cold on your face, right down to the sense of belonging to a family of your own... it's all very realistic, isn't it? Mine was too..." he added, almost wistfully. That did not fail to capture Milliardo's interest.  
  
"You had one of these... glimpses, too?" He found himself hesitating on the word, as though by saying it out loud he were acknowledging that his time on Mars had indeed been all a masterfully crafted illusion.  
  
"Just after Leia died," Treize explained, sincere emotion managing to creep into his otherwise customary aloofness.  
  
"My mother sent it to me. She wanted to show me what my life could be if I just walked away from it all and took custody of my baby. If I gave us both the chance at a normal life... Mine felt about a week long. It took me that much to get used to the idea of being a father, but by the end of it I didn't want to wake up either."  
  
"You never mentioned any of that," Milliardo countered skeptically, "You mean to tell me that you had such a powerful experience, and yet it had absolutely no effect on your life once you were sent back?"  
  
"Quite the contrary," Treize explained, "I came back with the knowledge that I loved my daughter more than anything in the world, and that she would always be my top priority. And I had to choose accordingly. At the time, we were living in a world that no child should ever have to experience, so if anything, the glimpse made me even more determined to give everything I had to bring on the change. I wanted her to grow up safe, and came to realize that running away from my responsibilities to the world would not bring that about. If anything, an association with my name would put her in even more danger. As much as I wanted to see her grow up and be involved in her life, I was in the position to help craft a better world for her, and I'd like to think that I did, in the end."  
  
"But you must have known what she went through, growing up with that poor excuse for a grandfather," Milliardo protested. He could see Treize's reasoning for staying out of his daughter's life, and he respected him all the more for his sacrifice. But, having now experienced fatherhood himself, he could not bring himself to understand how he could have been able to bear it.  
  
"No offense to Leia, but was there anyone else in that family that was even remotely fit to raise a child?"  
  
"How could I just leave her there, righ?" Treize anticipated. His friend had indeed come a long way, if he understood so well what it felt like to love one's children more than one's own life.   
  
"I knew I couldn't be a father to her as long as I was alive. So I made sure she had the next best thing once I was gone. There was nobody in the world that I trusted more than my dear Lady. So on December 24, 196, I sent her a glimpse of what her life would be like if she chose to rescue Mariemaia and adopt her as her daughter."  
  
He ended that revelation with the most self-satisfied smile that had ever graced his features, and Milliardo could not help but salute his genius. He had always been curious as to what had prompted Anne to do such an about-face during the Christmas crisis. How she had gone from considering Mariemaia a threat to humanity, and therefore expendable, to waking up the next day hell-bent on rescuing her from the family who had victimized and brainwashed her. All the pieces of the puzzle certainly seemed to make sense in light of that...  
  
And now it was his time to go back and make some life-altering choices of his own. If only...  
  
"What about my children?" Milliardo asked, "They are part of the glimpse... Does that mean I will never see them again?"  
  
"It is entirely up to you whether you do or not," Treize quipped, still feeling pretty smug, "You just haven't made it a priority to have them yet..."  
  
"Oh, sure," Milliardo retorted, "you may have been a smooth-talking ladies' man, but I don't even know whether Noin's still single. Or whether she wants anything to do with me, for that matter..."  
  
"True, you don't," Treize conceded, "but what is entirely up to you is how far you're willing to go to make her fall in love with you all over again..."  
  
"Then I am ready," Milliardo declared, knowing that at least that much was within his control, "Just let me say good-bye to them first..."  
  
"Take all the time that you need," Treize reassured with a friendly pat on the shoulder, "We'll go when you're done."  
  
*************************  
  
The first thing that Milliardo did upon re-entering the house was to sneak up into his and Noin's bedroom. He leaned on her sleeping form still curled up in the quilt, careful not to wake her up.  
  
"See you very soon," he spoke softly to her, "Feel free to kick my ass, if you must. God knows I deserve it... But please give me another chance. I love you..."  
  
With that, he placed a feather-light kiss on her temple. Saying good-bye to her was the easy part, knowing he would see, or at the very least, talk to her again immediately upon his return to Sanq.  
  
He then made his way into his daughter's bedroom. He sat at the foot of her bed and stood watch over her, admiring every single part of the angelic face that he had grown to love so much. Their miracle girl, one of the first babies to be born on Mars, back when it was still very much a work in progress... He told her of how special and how loved she was, and how much she had managed to teach him in such a short time.  
  
As soon as he felt himself grow sleepy once more, he moved to his son's nursery. He spent the rest of the night contemplating the sleeping toddler who could have been the carbon copy of himself as a baby. He tried to commit every single detail to memory, from how soft his blonde peach fuzz felt under his hand, to that lovely, indefinable angel scent that all babies seem to have, to how quickly his hugs had managed to melt even his cold, skeptical, self-damaged heart.  
  
Finally, he surrendered to a dreamless sleep in the rocking chair beside the crib.  
  
*****************************  
  
The first thing he became aware of was the radio alarm clock going off to the notes of "Little Drummer Boy" being sung by the Royal St. Mary's Children's Choir, and he knew right away that he must be back in Sanq.  
  
A feeling of emptiness and gloom settled into his stomach as he opened his eyes and recognized the impeccably stylish, yet impersonal surroundings of his penthouse apartment.  
  
9:00 AM on Christmas day, he read from the alarm clock's LCD display. The last three days on Mars had indeed been just one night's dream.  
  
"But you're wrong... it's so much more than that," a childlike voice within him protested with all its might, "You have learned; everything else is up to you!"  
  
And he knew right away that everything hinged on whether he could find that crumpled note with Noin's phone number, the very same one that he had foolishly tossed in the garbage the night before.  
  
He got ready in record time, then dashed out the door and drove like a madman to his office. If he was lucky, the cleaners might not have come by to empty his waste bin yet...  
  
He heaved a huge sigh of relief upon seeing that his office was just as messy as he had left it the night before. He resolutely pulled his right sleeve up, bent under his desk, and proceeded to plunge his hand into the waste basket, cringing in disgust as he fished around for the small note among empty Starbucks cups, candy bar wrappers, and slimy banana peels.  
  
Dolores must have thought that Mr. Peacecraft had finally lost all his marbles when she poked her head into his office armed with bucket and mop, and saw him sitting on the floor with the contents of his waste bin spilled all around, an expression of pure triumph as he beheld a rather wrinkled piece of paper in his hand.  
  
It took him a good half-hour to work up the courage to dial the number. He still had no idea what he was going to say to her once she picked up. Just the thought of the rest of his future resting on whatever words came out of his mouth right that moment was enough to keep his fingers from working properly on the keys. He was fully aware of his heart rate as he listened to the tone, waiting for her to pick up. Twice, three, four times it rang, each ring causing his stomach to do another backflip. Then she picked up.  
  
"Thank you for calling CavalliStudio," a female voice that he didn't recognize as Noin's spoke into the receiver, "We are closed for the Holidays until January 2nd, but please leave us a message and your contact information, and we will get back to you. Thank you, and have a wonderful holiday season!"  
  
For a second, he wondered whether he might have the wrong number, all hopes of ever reconnecting with her wavering momentarily, until the name clicked in his memory.   
  
Noin's mother was National Geographic photographer Chiara Cavalli, who happened to have a studio right in Sanq. He recalled from their days at the Academy how Noin always spent the Christmas holidays with her father and stepmother, on accounts of her mother always being busy on some important photo shoot or other. But the summers were their quality time together. Mother and daughter would go freelance, pack their equipment, and travel the world, Noin acting as her mother's apprentice.   
  
He recalled how much he had envied her life at the time, seeing her come back to school tanned and happy, with countless stories of her travel adventures with a mother who acted more like a big sister, and stacks of pictures to prove them all true. While all the other students moped and groaned about the start of the new semester, he spent his summers feeling like Harry Potter at the Dursleys', looking forward to the start of school, when he would be reunited with his best friend, and maybe soak up some of her happiness and relative normalcy.  
  
He deduced that Noin must be staying at her mother's artsy loft-studio while in town, and hastily left a message with his own cell phone number before the voice mail system had a chance to cut him off.   
  
Now he could do nothing but wait for her to call him back... if she really did want to reconnect with him. Overall, that put him in a very uncomfortable spot, where he had little or no control.   
  
He decided that, since he couldn't very well show up on her doorstep without looking like some kind of stalker, he might as well do something else to pass the time until she called. He drove back home, put on his snow gear, and headed for the local mountains to enjoy a day on the ski slopes. Maybe the physical exercise would calm his nerves enough so that he could at least sound semi-coherent once she did call.  
  
What he did not bank on was one of the signal towers that normally serviced the resort's cell phone users to be temporarily down. He spent until past noon skiing down every run like a maniac, before he decided to grab a bite to eat and found himself within cell phone range again. It was just as he bit down on his focaccia sandwich that his cell phone beeped, signaling to him that he had a new voice mail.  
  
"Tag, you're it," the all-too familiar voice greeted, as his heart began to race and his stomach did flip-flops, "It's Noin. Sorry I didn't pick up earlier... didn't realize I'd given you my mom's business number instead of her personal one... duh... Anyway... you can call me back at the same number, and I promise this time I'll pick up! Thanks and talk to you later!"  
  
Well, she didn't sound like she was too mad at him... In fact, her tone of voice and phone-tag joke had been outright friendly. Maybe she didn't hate his guts after all...  
  
Deciding not to take any more chances with spotty cell phone coverage, he resolved that, since she had called him back and expressed her desire to connect with him, it might not be too inappropriate for him to drop by the studio instead.   
  
Once again, he put the pedal to the metal, quickly changed out of his ski gear into something more appropriate for meeting the ex-girlfriend whom he had recently discovered he was still very much hung up on, and then walked the few blocks from his apartment to the photographer studio, all the while thanking whoever had invented the Internet for making it so easy to find the address.  
  
To be continued... 


	9. Come Away With Me

Chapter 9: Come Away With Me  
  
He had just figured out which numbers to punch in on the buzzer when a couple of young urbanites appeared behind him, cappuccinos in hand, giggling and huddling from the cold the way that new lovers often do on a chilly winter's day, and let themselves in. They were kind enough to hold the door for him, and yet, the first thought that came to his mind as they shared the elevator ride was more along the lines of whether the two always let complete strangers into the building.   
  
"I could be a serial killer, for all they know..."  
  
He chalked it up to a case of "Once a Preventer, Always a Preventer"-type paranoia versus the Yuletide Fuzzies as the elevator stopped at his floor, and the young couple wished him a merry Christmas before continuing on to their own.  
  
"This is it," he braced himself before ringing the doorbell. Had there been a mirror in the elevator, he would have been sure to check that his hair didn't look like a complete wind-blown mess, but that was, alas, wishful thinking.  
  
Imagine the surprise on Milliardo Peacecraft's face as he was greeted at the door not by the lovely black-haired woman that he so longed and dreaded to see at once, but by a wrinkly, far-too-tanned Howard, wearing a garish red and green shirt with reindeers and Santas.  
  
"Holy crap... Zechs?!" the older man exclaimed jovially as he proceeded to land him a bear hug, then promptly corrected himself, "oh... sorry, buddy... guess you go by Milliardo now, eh? How've you been?"  
  
The disappointment must have been evident on his face, because as soon as Howard released him, he gave the younger man a lopsided grin of complicity, then jerked his thumb towards a door off to the side.  
  
"Guess you're here to see Noin, huh? She's in there..."   
  
He then proceeded to holler, loud enough for her to hear over the Celtic Christmas carols playing in the background,   
  
"Hey, sugar... I'm gonna go over to my sister to see if she needs any help with the turkey an' stuff... I'll see you later, 'kay?" and with that, he promptly made his escape before she even had the chance to protest or, for that matter, ask who was at the door.  
  
"At least help me get this box down," Milliardo heard her plead from the other room, just as the door slammed shut, "Howard? Aw, man... You suck!"  
  
Like clockwork, his Damsel-in-Distress radar kicked in, and he figured that, while he couldn't very well spend the rest of Christmas day lurking around in Noin's foyer, he could go lend a helping hand and, maybe, make enough of a positive impression with his gesture, that he may once again stand a chance with her.  
  
He walked into the adjacent room, and saw her standing on top of a tall ladder, facing away from him. He noticed right away that she was wearing a very flattering pair of jeans and a Mars College hoodie, and could have easily passed for one of her own students. Her hair, just about as long as he had pictured it in his glimpse, was tied up in a messy ponytail, wisps of it escaping the elastic every time her head moved. He was willing to bet that she wasn't expecting company, yet she had never looked lovelier to him. He still couldn't quite figure out how Howard fit in the picture, or why, for that matter, he had called her "sugar" and gotten away with it without any broken limbs, but he wasn't going to fret too much about that for the time being.  
  
She was trying, from the looks of it, to pull down a large cardboard box from the top shelf of a wall-to-wall closet. She had managed, that is, to slide the box out of its tight corner, and now had it balanced precariously on the ladder's front rail, wondering how in the heck she was going to get it to the floor without dropping it in the process.   
  
Without a word, he stepped beside the ladder, and reached up to grab the sides of the box, while she went back to explore the recesses of the closet for more old junk to take out of storage.  
  
"Thanks for coming back," she said without looking down, once she felt the box no longer propped up against her upper body, "This one's a heavy one, so careful with your back, ok, Howard?"  
  
He couldn't help smiling at her absent-mindedness as he prepared to give her the shock of her life.  
  
"No problem," he replied in his unmistakably un-Howard-ish husky tone, and made a point to look directly at her as she turned around startled, then yelped, jumped, and lost her balance.  
  
He was quick to catch her before she could actually fall off the ladder's platform, but could not salvage the box. He cringed as his innocent prank backfired, and the contents of the box, which he could now recognize as Noin's old Academy books and class notes, were ejected and scattered into a thousand directions.  
  
"Sorry," he muttered sheepishly and looked away as he released his hold on her waist. He had tried to play it cool and sneak up on her like he used to do back in the Academy, but had only succeeded in looking like a complete immature prat instead. That, and almost giving her a heart attack...  
  
"Zechs," she gasped, still trying to catch her breath, "Oh... sorry... It's Milliardo now, right? I keep forgetting..."  
  
When he finally looked at her face, he saw that she was smiling. Not smirking, or giving him one of those "You stupid twit" sneers that Dorothy was so very skilled at, but actually smiling, like she was genuinely happy to see him, for whatever reason.  
  
"I didn't expect you to come over," she fumbled as she began to swat dust from her clothes, now looking quite embarrassed herself. He began to think that showing up unannounced and uninvited had been entirely rude of him.  
  
"I mean... I'm a mess... the place is a mess..."  
  
And yet, next thing he knew, she had stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his neck.   
  
Now, that, he had not expected! That she would be guarded, or uncomfortable around him, that she would tread with caution and treat him with polite detachment, even that she would still be royally peeved at him and slam the door in his face and tell him to go to hell... now that, he was fully prepared for. Lucrezia Noin walking up to him and hugging him and wishing him a merry Christmas, on the other hand, was completely and utterly bizarre, and he was not quite sure how to react to that.  
  
"It's good to see you," she finally greeted as she released him and casually started collecting the mess of books on the floor, leaving him even more mystified,   
  
"It's been far too long... Hey, these are exactly the notes I was looking for! Cool..."  
  
They made quick work of the room, both picking and shuffling and stacking the loose sheets of paper in silence. There was one thing about Noin's class notes, he remembered as he sorted each by date: once you learned how to decipher her chicken scratch, they were the most thorough and organized study resource that money could buy...  
  
"I was just about to make some tea..." she offered, "Unless you have to be somewhere else, that is..."  
  
He was quick to accept, quite adamant that he didn't need to be at Relena's until just before dinnertime. He saw her head straight for the kitchen, where she put on a funky hen-shaped kettle and pointed to a plate heaping with gingerbread cookies.  
  
"Help yourself," she invited as she grabbed a star-shaped cookie for herself and began munching on it.  
  
"Don't worry, I didn't bake them," she pointed out as she saw him hesitate, "I'm sorry to say that I still can't bake worth squat. Abby made them... that's Howard's sister, who he just deserted me for..."  
  
He thanked her and picked a gingerbread man, then scrutinized it for a while. His dilemma wasn't quite whether he should be biting off an arm or the head first, but rather, what to make of the odd feeling in the pit of his stomach at the thought of her being so close to Howard's family relations. He knew for a fact that the dirty old man had made no secret of finding Noin-sensei quite the captivating young lady, back when she first left Victoria Lake to fight alongside him. And he also knew that she had great professional respect for Howard's technical skills, and had wanted to recruit him for Terraformer on several occasions. But anything beyond that was simply... wrong.  
  
"Now, I know peppermint's your favourite, but what do you think of this?" she interrupted his flow of thought, then held out a tin container for him to sniff.  
  
"Victorian Christmas blend," she explained.  
  
It smelled like something from his childhood. Cranberries, mulling spices and orange peel, quite liberal with the cinnamon and cloves. And something else that he couldn't quite place.   
  
"I love the rose petals, they're such a unique touch," she added as she reached for two mugs and pulled the kettle from the stove as soon as it started whistling.  
  
Roses, that was it. His mother had been very fond of a tea that smelled just like that. He remembered how she would make it for him every time he caught a cold, and how they would sit by the fire and she would read to him. Even his father sometimes joined in, and the two royal parents would alternate reciting the lines for the little prince, making funny voices to match with the story's dialogue. That simple remedy, administered with such tender loving care, always managed to make him feel so much better...  
  
"That'll be fine," he agreed, surprised at how distant his voice had come out sounding. He found it hard to rationalize, and yet, a part of him was alarmed by Noin's perfectly warm and friendly demeanor. It was as if, in a way, he had wanted her to still be mad at him, to openly resent him and make him work hard to regain her friendship and respect, rather than having her treat him as if they were still old school buddies, and nothing of real consequence had ever happened between them to jeopardize that.  
  
He resolved to ask her just that, as they sat down in the living room to have their tea and catch up on the past.  
  
"What made you call me, after all these years?" he cut to the chase, aware of exactly how his directness must have sounded rude and obnoxious to anyone else who didn't know him nearly as well as she did. She seemed slightly taken aback for a split second, before her enigmatic smile clicked into place once again.   
  
"I missed being friends with you," she replied candidly, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, "I mean, we got so caught up in our busy lives and day-to-day stuff that we got completely disconnected and ended up losing touch for the past... what? Ten years?"  
  
"Ten years and twenty-four days, actually..." he corrected, unable to ignore the sting of knowing that she was no longer keeping count of their time apart.   
  
It had been their ritual ever since the Academy. Soon after he had turned thirteen, he had told her about his identity, and how he detested spending his summer vacations at the Khushrenadas', who had been his legal guardians at the time. She had been the one to come up with the idea, and had even given Treize's parents the code name of "the Dursleys", so that they could poke fun at them in their correspondence without risk of detection. Admittedly, Mrs. Khushrenada had never had the slightest clue, considering herself well above all that Harry Potter low-brow junk that cadet Noin had introduced him to, but he had a feeling that Treize had known all along and had a few laughs himself.   
  
Every June, on their last day of school, they would calculate exactly how many days there were to go before the start of the new school year. They would say goodbye and then, every September, they would meet again, giddy with excitement, and know exactly how much time had elapsed. That secret ritual had seen them through many a dangerous mission, long after their graduation.  
  
He had to know how much of it she had forgotten.  
  
"Is this your version of the story?" he inquired, "that we just... grew apart and were too lazy to keep in touch?"   
  
"Partly, yes," she replied, then corrected herself right away, "I'm not sure it had anything to do with laziness per se. I think it had more to do with wanting to give each other space, and being too proud and too stubborn to call, and what have you... The fact remains that it's been far too long since we've talked or seen each other, and that just plain sucks. Why... what is your side of the story?" she then prompted.  
  
"My side of the story?" he began, "Well... let's see... I ran off to Sanq to try my hand at politics, and left you to deal with all the crap of Terraformer. Which, might I add, you had only joined to keep my ass out of trouble, as I recall I was pretty messed up in the head at the time. What else? Oh, right, I chickened out at the thought of a long-distance relationship, was too proud to ask you to move to Sanq with me, and broke up with you right before Valentine's day, over the phone like a complete coward, and never even offered a decent explanation as to why. Overall, not one of my best moments."  
  
Her expression went from curiosity to worry and disappointment. Even her body language shut him out for a second as she drew back and collected her thoughts. He could have sworn right there and then, that she had debated over how appropriate it would be to reach for his hand, and decided against it.  
  
"Zechs, I'm not going to sit here and lie to you," she finally announced, leaning forward and closing both hands around the warmth of her tea mug,   
  
"You broke my heart. You did, and I'm not going to try and tell you otherwise just to make you feel better. And yeah, for a while, life was the pits. It sucks when you lose the one person that you fancied yourself growing old with, and you don't even know why. But eventually I got over it. Life goes on, and if it didn't work out between us, well, then maybe it wasn't really meant to be..."  
  
"Or maybe it just wasn't the right time," he pointed out, refusing to allow that it may indeed be too late.  
  
"Quite possibly," she conceded, still not losing her train of thought, "Who knows what might have happened if we had taken it slower? We both needed to recover from a lot of stuff from the war... But the thing is, we got so caught up in blaming ourselves and each other for why things didn't work out, that we ended up forgetting the things that did work, and letting our friendship go down the drain as well... It's like... throwing away the baby along with the poopy diaper!"   
  
He watched her cheeks flush as she realized what she had just blurted out. "Right... bathroom humour in the middle of having proper English tea with royalty... And I buggered up your name, to boot... yeah... anyway..." she cringed.   
  
"Whichever name you're most comfortable with," he countered, then debated over how to continue on, "It's still me..."   
  
He just about called her Luce, like he had used to all those years ago, but in the end decided against it for the time being. Right now, he hadn't earned that right yet.  
  
"Quite effective analogy, though," he commented, now having experienced babies and diapers himself, courtesy of his recent glimpse. He wondered for a second whether he should tell her of what he had learned...  
  
"Look, Ze... Milliardo, I know hindsight is 20/20," she continued, her voice betraying the fact that she was still feeling pretty self-conscious about her gaffe,   
  
"But nothing was worth losing my best friend... I was hoping we could, at the very least, stop feeling like we have to avoid each other..."  
  
"I was hoping for more than that," he countered, and watched her look away uncomfortably for a moment, "I was hoping you could forgive me for being such a prat, and we could get to know each other all over again. I don't expect it to be just like it was; it would be pretty unrealistic... But maybe, in due time, we could learn to be friends again."  
  
"That sounds like a fair deal," she accepted, and he felt a sizable weight being lifted from his chest. Their two goofy grins mirrored each other, and slowly the tension began to melt. This was exactly what he had hoped for... it was once again starting to feel natural to be in each other's presence. Maybe, just maybe it wouldn't be too inappropriate if he were to casually ask her to come by Relena's Christmas party later that evening...  
  
CRASH!!! MEOWWWW! CLANG!!!  
  
They both turned around startled at the sudden commotion, only to see a collapsed Christmas tree in the adjacent reading room, and a big, fat tuxedo cat tangled in a mess of lights and ornaments, squirming to break free. Milliardo fought to keep a straight face, even as his perfect moment had just been spoiled. Noin just grimaced and shook her head in exasperation.  
  
"Looks like I picked the pretty one in the litter," she grumbled as she strode over to the disaster scene, then began to untangle the cat, all the while dodging claws.  
  
"Ow... son of a... Hey, Zechs... How would you like to adopt a cat? Bet you my mom won't even miss him..."  
  
He set aside all thoughts of the party for the time being, and helped her dispose of any broken ornaments. Together, they did their best to straighten up the Christmas tree, which, by that point, had lost a good portion of its needles all over the rug and chaise lounge.  
  
"Sorry..." she apologized sheepishly, "He's got a thing for Christmas trees. Last year, he tore down mine, too..."  
  
"Wow... Quite the traveler, for a house cat..." Milliardo couldn't help but comment, "All the way to Mars?"   
  
"Mars?" Noin cocked her head in confusion, then clued in right away, "Oh... Right... No, actually... I haven't been there in ages..."   
  
  
  
Now it was Milliardo's turn to be puzzled.  
  
"Oh... I just thought..." and pointed to the Mars College logo on her sweater, "I mean... I heard that ... Didn't you start the College?"   
  
"Yeah, a bunch of us from Terraformer did," she confirmed, "But I got out of it pretty early on after it was all settled... The pay wasn't all that great," she explained, "and besides, I wasn't ready to put down roots..."  
  
"So when did you come back to Earth?" Milliardo inquired, now quite curious.  
  
"About four years ago," she pondered casually, "I got offered a job designing similar programs for other military academies... You know, with the whole industry being down, recruitments at an all-time low... All those prestigious schools had to reinvent themselves to survive and figured that, if Mars had started a successful program teaching peaceful applications of mobile suit technology, they darn well should too."  
  
"Very cool," he congratulated her, "Relena attended a conference about that not too long ago... She was so impressed that she started talking about setting up grants right away. So where have you been stationed?"   
  
"Oh, you know... Just about everywhere. Aussie lured me away at first... then Vicki Lake started paying attention and jumped on the bandwagon, then Corsica... That was fun, being able to take day trips into Italy. Then they asked me to help set up a new training base in Newfoundland... Genius that I am, I agreed to go there in January... Needless to say, never again! And last but not least, I've been stationed in London for about a year and a half now...."  
  
London was good, he thought. Very good, in fact. He had spent the past few hours wondering about the logistics of rebuilding their relationship, if they each lived and worked in two different parts of the Solar System. But London was less than an hour away by air... He could easily pop by for the weekend, and from the sounds of it, she also liked to visit Sanq quite regularly. That almost made them neighbours, as far as he was concerned!  
  
They spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on each other's lives, rediscovering how right it felt to just be together, reminiscing and sharing a few laughs. He had soon found out that she was still very much single, courtesy of her refusal to settle in any one place for too long, be that physically or emotionally.   
  
She was in Sanq for the holidays to present a textbook that she and Howard had just finished collaborating on. It was to be the first of its kind to deal with Gundam technology, and she could foresee it raising quite a few eyebrows at first. After all, Gundams were still regarded as terrifying war machines by a large portion of Earth's population, much more so than other run-of-the-mill mobile suits like those that OZ had employed. But her experience had also proven that Gundam-derived suits, extremely modular by design, were the ones that could most easily be retrofitted and employed successfully for terraforming and other peaceful applications.  
  
The sun had long set over the city's skyline, even brighter with the addition of Christmastime decorations, when Noin brought up the other reason why she had made that phone call to his office the day before.  
  
"I was going through some of my old stuff, and I came across something that belongs to you," she said, then quickly disappeared up the stairs to the loft where the master bedroom must have been.  
  
She came back down a moment later carrying a gift-wrapped box the size of a large book, and he felt like a bit of an inconsiderate twit, having shown up empty-handed instead.  
  
"You must have left it behind when you left Mars," she explained, then prompted him to go ahead and open it up.   
  
Inside was a leather-bound photo album, which he recognized right away as the very same one that his mother had started when he was born. It contained all his baby pictures, and some of Relena's as well, right up until the summer before the fall of Sanq. The rest of the pictures in there had been taken by Noin herself during their academy days. He used to poke fun of her habit of always carrying a digital camera in her school bag, "just in case", but had to admit that the school's yearbook was always a hoot, courtesy of her candid-camera shots of the students and faculty.  
  
"Holy cow, look at that hair," he chuckled a bit melancholically at a picture of himself as a five-year-old, perched on top of a pony. Poofy shocks of Scandinavian-blonde hair poked out of his riding helmet at both sides, but the little boy didn't seem to care at all, engrossed as he was in the excitement of having just received his very own pony for his birthday.  
  
"I was going to drop it off at Relena's," Noin commented softly, not wanting to intrude in his reminiscing, yet feeling like she owed an explanation, "But she gave me your work number instead..."  
  
"Crap... Relena," Milliardo suddenly remembered. He checked the time, and was quite alarmed to find out that he was conspicuously late for his sister's dinner party. So late, in fact, that he was sure he had entirely missed the whole "dinner" aspect of it.  
  
Noin panicked as well at her own lateness to the Webbers' Christmas party, and immediately got on the phone and began apologizing a mile a minute to the hostess. Milliardo could tell from the gist of the conversation that Abby had somewhat expected her to be delayed by "other things", and was not offended in the least, but Noin was in quite a frazzle over it nonetheless. Even Howard, at one point, had to get on the phone to reassure her that no harm was done.   
  
Milliardo watched with amusement as Noin's face turned crimson-red, as though Howard had just made a very saucy remark.  
  
"Oh, gimme a break! That is so not what's going on, you potty-head!" she defended herself, blushing even more, and he knew right away by the way she hushed the receiver that, whatever the joke was, it definitely had something to do with him and clothing, or a lack thereof.  
  
He had a feeling that Relena would not be so easy-peasy. One of his resolutions since waking up from his glimpse had been to start spending more time getting closer to his circle of family and friends, and somehow, missing Christmas dinner by a mile was not quite his idea of accomplishing that. Especially since he had already neglected to show up at the previous night's Christmas Eve get-together...  
  
He dialed his sister's private number, and systematically ran through and dismissed all the standard excuses that he had used in the past as he waited for her to pick up.  
  
"Hey, stranger," she greeted him cheerfully instead. He speculated that she must have already had at least a couple of glasses of wine... either that, or she was up to something. Not wanting to take any chances, he began to apologize profusely for his lateness, which she promptly cut off.  
  
"You don't have to explain anything," she insisted, sounding rather giggly, "Howard called Duo when a certain Miss Noin didn't show up to Christmas dinner with his family, and asked whether she was here with you instead... I think it's so great that you guys have reconnected! Don't feel like you have to come by on my account, I know how these things go... Take all the privacy that you two need!"  
  
Oh, great, he thought. His sister, Mrs. Matchmaker Extraordinaire, had already been tipped off and, if he knew her well enough, was already scheming... This could be interesting, alright...  
  
"Look, Relena, this is not what you think," he warned, only to be summarily dismissed.  
  
"Nonsense!" the young minister replied, "I'm sending over Pagan with some dinner and a nice bottle of wine for you guys... you must be ravenous! Light up the Christmas tree... you guys have one, right? 'Cause I can send one over..."  
  
"Yes, Lena, we do, but you really don't have to..."   
  
"Miles... shut up and listen for once. Light up that Christmas tree, put on some music, and enjoy a nice intimate dinner with her, ok?"  
  
"Lena, it's not... we're not... aw, man..."  
  
"Nuh-uh... talk to the hand! May I recommend Norah Jones? Did the trick for Heero and me... Anything else you guys need, just give me a call and I'll send it over! We'll talk tomorrow, ok? Bye!"  
  
He stared in disbelief at his cell phone, looking quite peeved. His sister had just hung up on him! How he was going to break the whole "romantic dinner" idea to Noin, he hadn't the slightest clue. Last time he checked, they had only agreed to rekindle their friendship...  
  
She looked at him, an expression of complete befuddlement and helplessness on her face as she ended her own phone conversation with Howard.  
  
"Zechs... I think we're being conspired against," she announced with a frustrated sigh, "Abby's sending over dessert. Apparently, we're both banned from her and your sister's homes for the rest of the evening... Whatever this whole thing is about, they're in on it together and, quite frankly, that scares the hell out of me..."  
  
He pondered for a second the thought of Relena and Howard ganging up on them, and shuddered. One was known for her mad-dog determination, the other for his ingenuity and deviousness. One was an incurable romantic, the other a complete whack-job. Overall, that did indeed paint a rather frightening picture... Frightening, yet strangely welcome nonetheless.  
  
"I think we'd better roll with it," he suggested with a resigned smile, "for the sake of our own sanity..."   
  
"Mmm... yep," Noin agreed in mock-defeat after a moment of silence, "We could probably take them separately, but together... those two are a force to be reckoned with."  
  
*************************  
  
As Christmas Day, 208 A.C. drew to a close, a ginger-haired shadow of a man walked down a snow-covered sidewalk in Sanq's capital, yet strangely left no footprints. He spared a glance up to a trendy condo of artsy loft-studios, and smiled in utter satisfaction for a job masterfully done.  
  
In front of one unit's floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the harbour and the city, a couple slow-danced rather bashfully in the dim light of candles and a Christmas tree. If he strained his now heightened sense of hearing, he could even make out the melody playing softly in the background.  
  
"I want to walk with you  
  
On a cloudy day  
  
In fields where the yellow grass grows   
  
knee-high  
  
So won't you try to come?  
  
Come away with me and we'll kiss  
  
On a mountaintop  
  
Come away with me and I'll never stop  
  
Loving you..."  
  
The beginning!  
  
Author's Note: Than you so very much to all of you who poked, prodded, and otherwise motivated me to finish this project! I know I can be a real slowpoke, and I've often thought of dropping this fic entirely, despite being very fond of it myself, in favour of other things that took priority in my life. Thank you for bearing with me and my wishy-washiness, and for not letting me give up on a good thing.  
  
Hope your Christmas was just as magical as theirs... 


End file.
